The Gold in Your Story

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Whether you’ve lived a decade or two or have been around for a lot longer, there is gold in your story. Sure, we each have unexpected twists and turns that send us in different directions than we had hoped for, but amidst the difficulties and successes, there’s a deeper story being written in you that is filled with gold.

Much of my growing-up years were filled with this gnawing sense that I didn’t measure up. I was at best trying to catch up with others around me. At worst, I was sidelined, forgotten, and left to my dismal fate. 

If you had asked me when I was in my young adult years, what I was good at, I’d give you this long paused look and mumble some gibberish about nothing.  “I’m good at nothing. All I can see are my failings.”

It’s amazing how lies can pile up and be used by the Enemy to snuff the wind out of any sail you had.
Here are some phrases that circled my head well into my adult years:

“What is wrong with you?”

“Can’t you do anything right?”

“I should have known better than to pick you.”

“Why are you constantly interrupting me?”

It’s amazing how one can follow Jesus and live in such misery, and discouragement. I truly believe I struggled with depression.

“But, there is gold in your story.”

On one of his podcasts, Morgan Snyder described an adventure gone wrong; a disastrous hunting trip to Alaska. They had planned for the bull-moose hunt for three years. Searched out the guide pilot, the public lands to hunt on, saved up their money, and meticulously prepared for what was to be the adventure of a lifetime. 

Everything that could go wrong did. The guide was more of a commando than a guide. Every spot he took them, which was promised to them only, was occupied by others. The mosquitos were so thick that you couldn’t even drop your pants to take a dump without being bitten a million times!  Sipping coffee meant doing so through a mosquito net that you had to wear 24/7. It rained constantly for eight days. They ran low on food. The lakes they were on were basins, thus no fish. 

Despite all of their rut calls, they didn’t see a single moose. 

From a circumstantial perspective, it was a total disaster. A waste. What trophy were they bringing back to glory over?  What moose head did they have to mount on the wall? What bull meat to savor? 

And yet, there was gold in their story. 

Morgan explains the gold was in the character-building he and his fellow hunters experienced.

Leaning on Romans 5:3-5

3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Out in the middle of nowhere Alaska, absent from the hum and creature comforts of the cities they called home, they were faced with their shattered dreams, their survival, and their mortality. A form of self-inflicted suffering (they didn’t have to do the trip), but there they were. They were tested and on some days, it was dicey enough to question if they would pull through. 

Suffering pushes a man to persevere.  To press on, to not give up, to find a way, to sit in a rain-soaked tent for days, fighting off those pesky mosquitos. To let a starving stomach drive them to forage for blueberries in eye-shot of a grizzly consuming the other end of the berry patch. 

But, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. 

When the guide plane landed to pick them up, they were overjoyed to see the fixed-wing float plane taxi up to their pick-up point. 

Character.  To a young man caught up in the flash and glitz of young adulthood, character-building is the last thing on his mind. “Who wants that?”  

Wisdom calls forth amid pain and endurance, “Learn from me. Sit here in the miserable place, this lonely apartment, where the ache of your soul feels like you could vomit. Where everything in you screams to self-medicate, to escape your situation, even if you temporarily disconnect from reality. Listen to wisdom speak to the inner depth of your emerging soul. Let me be used by God to refine you, to transform the boy in you into a man.”

Gold comes forth when we persevere in suffering.

As part of their rites of passage into manhood, another dad and I took our 14-year-old sons on a 4-day backpacking and canoe trip to the interior of Canada’s Algonquin Provincial Park. Much like Morgan’s Alaska experience, we had our share of near disasters.  A storm quickly rose while we were canoeing Lake Lavielle. There was no way to reach shore as we watched lighting strike a tall pine and fall into the lake. Holding onto saplings on a tiny island about the size of a small house, rain drenched us and our canoes. We could have capsized. 

But, we didn’t. We endured. We pressed on. When Ross got a trouble hook caught in his scalp, we called forth the inner man in us and performed field surgery.  When we crossed Dickson Lake seeing the black bear in the distance, we pressed on to what would be our longest portage of the trip, 5 kilometers.

I can’t make gold happen in my story any more than you can. Producing gold is a God-thing. He supernaturally infuses His presence, His Spirit into the dirt and sweat and uncertainty of the circumstances you find yourself in. He presses and pulls and shapes and refines. He puts us under the fire, removing the dross, removing the little boy in us who doesn’t believe he has what it takes. 

Here’s how I know there is gold in my story. When circumstances take a dive, I am not easily shaken. I’ve seen God work in the past through very difficult situations and come through for me. I’ve seen Him not abandon me, even if I felt abandoned at the time. His presence gives me hope. That is how I know there is gold in my story.

When I die, people will say all kinds of things about me. Hopefully, good things, although the difficult stories may be worth hearing, even to see how God wove some gold into my story. For His glory.

What gold is there in your story?  We’d like to hear from you.  Email us at info@mentoring-warriors.com

Warrior On!