I have this friend, who is exceedingly wise. I have worlds of respect for this person. This person was delivered an almighty blow in the last week. This person explained it me in the following parable, and I share it here because I think it is 100% true and worth it for all of us to hear and learn:
One day, a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do.
Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They grabbed shovels and began to chuck dirt into the well. At once, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he settled down.
A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.
Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
Free your heart from hatred – Forgive.
Free your mind from worries – Most never happen.
Live simply and appreciate what you have.
Give more.
Expect less.
Author Unknown
We’ve all read emails like this. Funny how we read them, and hit the ‘delete’ button and just carry on. But this one has greater truth in it than 90% of the ones like this that I have received.
First is the context. My dear friend was horribly mistreated by someone very close. But the offending party didn’t realize how smart this person is is, how deep this person’s trust in God is or how strong the steel in this person’s soul is. The offending party underestimated this person’s strength. I think whoever it is, he or she will learn that my friend has far more going for them than they thought.
All of us have, at one point or another in our lives, been accused and mistreated. Sometimes for no good reason at all. That was the case with this person, who is cool enough to knows where their faults lie. However, this person is smart enough to know that when a line has been crossed, it is wise to take care of one’s self. I admire my friend, who is basically braver than anyone else I know.
You have these friends and you have these friends. Some friends are the kind you keep around you to simply have a good time with and be silly, enjoy the sunshine and do whatever. Other friends, like my best buddy Ben Aldous, you have them around you for when it all goes kaput. These are really more like family than anything else. They’re the ones that buttress you when the earth falls down around your ears.
This friend of mine is one of these. I write these words to uplift this person, since there’s no mistaking that this person has taken the high road and shown deep goodness of soul. Well done.
Now, I write this parabel:
There was once a man name Jeb. Jeb was a simple man. He grew up in the back country and had little life until one day, a man from San Francisco came along to his little village and spoke about the Gold In Them There Hills. He spun an elaborate tale of danger in the wilderness of Alaska, where gold was as plentiful as water, with bears and all kinds of other unseemly dangers. “But to the brave go the spoils!” said the man, and Jeb was compelled to vacate the simple life he’d always known to travel to the other side of the continent in search of untold riches and adventure.
He and 15 other young men from his village left on the day. Bags packed and hearts full of excitement and expectation, they boarded the train to Chicago, then to Denver, from there on to Sacramento, and from there, the long haul up to Anchorage, Alaska. It was cloudy and freezing cold on that late morning in February when they arrived, and the pack of 16 headed over to the covered wagons up into Them There Hills.
The journey was to last for a full twelve days. Day and night, the gaggle of back country boys walked and hauled their gear up into Them There Hills, fussing and fighting with each other all along the way. The road up into the Hills was hard and fraught with danger, and one by one, the 16 dwindled down to 10, and from there down to six. Jeb wondered at these other boys from his village, boys who had been the brightest and the best, who had never gone a day hungry, who had never known hardship or toil or trial. They were the first to go. Jeb and the other six carried on, spurned by the hope that in Them There Hills lay the resolution to all their pain and trial.
Days before arriving at the site the man had told them about, two more sat down and decided to simply give up. They grabbed their packs and headed back towards Anchorage, defeated, hungry and tired.
Jeb, the caravan leader and the other four looked around the fire night at each other, wondering if this was all worth it. Nevertheless, they awoke at earliest dawn’s light and grabbed their gear, soldiering on.
They arrived at the sight a day or two later. Nothing else to tell them they were at the spot than the sign post with the moniker for which they were told keep their eyes open: SC-0714-79.
The letters were painted on an old placard board nailed to a stake and hammered into the ground. They looked around. Scrub, rock and dirt as far as the eye could see. The hills towered overheard. What surveyor would see in a desolate land such as this? It was beautiful in its wild, untamed grandeur, but there was no hiding how intimidating the surroundings were.
So they unpacked their gear, the five of them. They stood around checking to see if everything was there: shovels and axes and hand drills and the like. Jeb collected firewood, and in the evening, the five settled down for the night with cans of beans roasting over the fire. A little pot bread was made. There was not much in the way of conversation.
In the morning, the five awoke at early dawn’s light and set about their work. As they dug into the hills, others set about fashioning timber to hold up the hill as they dug into the earth. It was exhausting, brutal work, but they all knew why they were there.
Day after day, they dug into the hill. Deeper and deeper they went. They happened upon vein after vein of gold, extracting what promise they could from the hill.
The youngest of the lot, named after a card game, was the first to check out. All looked at him and rolled their eyes. The young are always the first to bail. He’d known an easy life up to that point. The others had wondered at his adventurousness, when all his other peers had abandoned the journey so much earlier on.
Days slipped by. The remnant carried on with their work. In time, a swarthy young man from the group abandoned the party. Jeb and the other two, a bruising bear of a man and an older gentleman were left.
Weeks dragged by. The older man eventually looked at Jeb and shrugged his shoulders. He knew what it meant to try and quit. He’d been down the road. He was weary and full of bitterness. He’d dragged his bitterness and sour nature into this endeavor. He set his pickaxe down, looked at Jeb and without a word, turned and left.
So Jeb looked at the bear of a man, and the two without a word set about their work. No words were exchanged for weeks, in fact. There was simply the work, the work and the toil, the digging and the labor.
In time, the bear of the man looked up at the dim-lit cavern the two had dug into, glanced at Jeb and said “it’s all yours. This mine will never yield anything.” He stood at a crouch and shuffled his way to the exit. Jeb never saw him again.
Jeb was alone, several hundred yards into the hill. It was his job to dig and support the walls. It was all up to him now. The others had foregone the promise. Jeb decided to carry on.
Day after day, Jeb collected wood. Wood to burn in the fire at night. Wood to be hewn into support structures for the ever-deepening tunnel into the hill. Wood to be fashioned into axe and pick-axe handles.
One day after the next, Jeb toiled. He dug and he dug and he dug.
And then, one day, Jeb sat back on his buttocks and sobbed into his grimy shirt. He’d spent years, or what seemed like years, of his life digging into this unyielding mountain. He looked at the dark wall in front of him. The glimmers of crystal seemed to laugh at him from the flickering light of his lamp.
In a rage, he took the pick-axe and hurled it at the wall in front of him. He released a yell of rage and frustration, a last, fulminating howl of anger and desperation.
The pick-axe stuck in the wall, but from beyond the other side he heard an echo.
Just beyond where the pick-axe lay, there was an open hall. Without anything else to resort to, Jeb yanked the pick-axe out of the wall and hacked away at the gypsum and soapstone.
Piles of rock lay at his feet after hours of hacking and blowing and strained effort. Before him sprawled a giant, open vault glimmering with gold, deep veins lining the walls as far as his eyes could see in the dim light.
He heard the sound of water underneath where he stood. Water… sweet, mountain water, an underground stream to supply him with what he needed for the toil that lay ahead.
A cavern full of gold… gold to be pulled from its walls… gold to transform this simple, back country boy into the wealthiest man in the West. Or the East for that matter.
Jeb, this plain spoken, soft hearted young man from the back country, with nothing other than his wits and his endurance to carry him along the way, had discovered the kind of treasure that could forever transform his fortunes.
Jeb went on to be very well-off indeed. He managed to haul enough gold out of Them There Hills to become quite a bit of a Someone.
But that’s not the point. The point of Jeb’s story is sticking at it. Sometimes, life will make it pretty hard for you to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Jeb stuck at it until he struck gold.
There’s gold in all of us. It just takes someone to come along to hack away at the strata until it comes up. It’s always been there, it’s just a matter of finding it.
So to my friend who was delivered a heart-crushing beating this week, hang in there. There is gold in you and in all of us. Just keep hacking away. Don’t give up. Don’t throw in the towel. In time, all good things are revealed.
And most important, God is Sovereign and Good. He will turn every unmerited evil in this world into a good thing. A golden thing. A precious thing.
