Panning for gold

Have you ever ‘panned for gold’? I have discovered that it takes a good technique and a lot of patience to pan for gold, to wash away copious amounts of mud in order to find the little flakes and nuggets of the precious metal hidden within. At the end of the day it was not the technique, the water, or the mud that I valued—it was the gold. Finding the ‘gold’ in a combat deployment can be accomplished with similar diligence.

I often meet with soldiers who are unable to find any ‘gold’ in their combat tour. Their job turned out to be much less meaningful than they expected. They don’t like their roommate, or their boss. They want more time outside the wire, or less time outside the wire. They want more danger, or less danger. Whatever the cause they feel that they are wasting their time and life in their present circumstance.

They don’t know how to ‘pan for gold’. The apostle Paul was a man who was ‘deployed’ often and who knew the hardship of injustice. He was beaten for his convictions, shipwrecked, betrayed and misunderstood. He could have quit on a dozen occasions. But he did not quit.

Paul learned how to ‘pan for gold’ in the midst of difficult circumstances. He chose to learn from, grow and develop in spite of and because of his hardships. We can do the same.

We can develop educationally while we are deployed. We can choose to grow spiritually while we are deployed. We can take care of our physical fitness while we are deployed. The choice of whether we will grow or stagnate is ours, no matter our circumstances. We can ‘pan for gold’ during our combat tour.

I invite you to ‘go for the gold’, chose to grow in every dimension of your life while you are in MND-S.

If you choose to do so, in the years to come, it won’t matter how bored, hot or uncomfortable you were, what will matter will be the ‘gold’ you found in your experience and growth.