Thursday, November 17, 2011

HIGH-GRADE HONORS

By Stephen Bly

Some folks think of a gold mine as a deep cave lined with waves of 24-carat jewels. All they need is a crow bar to pry the treasures into big chunks. Then take their haul to the jeweler.

Doesn’t happen that way.

Fool's Gold
Most mines look like big dirt canyons. The gold’s so fine it can only be recovered by very pressurized, modern equipment. High prices and advanced technology combine to dig  out gold in places that in other eras would be considered worthless.

However, on occasion gold does litter some mine shafts.

Every so often a miner blasts into the center of a room-sized geode and he’s able to sack up almost pure gold by the shovels-full. Real high-grade stuff like that is rare to find. And near impossible to prevent theft. Valuable ore in chunks may line coat pockets and lunch pails. In fact, the term ‘high-grade’ evolved because of the rampant stealing of small particles of good ore by mine workers.

Not many of us work gold mines today. And everyone’s different in the temptations that harass him or her. But we all find ourselves in places where we have access to someone else’s goods. Whenever valuables of any sort are taken from an original owner for another’s own personal use, that’s high-grading. 


Did you used to make ends meet by stealing?
Well, no more! Get an honest job
so that you can help others who can’t work.
Ephesians 4:28 MSG

In our sloppy ethics society, refusal to steal means a moral upgrade, a God honoring pursuit.

Copyright©1993,2010 
Stephen Bly
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Have you ever gone searching for gold? Any luck?
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COMING MARCH 2012: Stuart Brannon's Final Shot
It's 1905. A lawman comes out of retirement to search for a missing U.S. Marshal friend and grapples with the game of golf on behalf of a celebrity tournament. 

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