Interacting and working with people is a lot like mining for gold.
Gold miners must move tons of dirt to find a single ounce of gold. At the risk of overstating the obvious, they are never looking for the dirt. The gold is much more valuable.
Sometimes the good in people is hard to find because there is so much “dirt.” Negative behaviors, poor attitudes, sin, disappointments, miscommunication… The dirt may be all we can see. But that’s why miners have to dig for gold. It’s rarely just waiting for them on the surface.
With some people, the gold is deep down, but it’s guaranteed to be there. God never makes garbage; every human being has something (and usually a lot of somethings) to offer. You might be the first person to have the patience to dig for it. That means that it’s going to take some serious work to find it, but it also means that the payoff will be really worth it. You might find gold that the individual doesn’t even know he or she has.
People with less wisdom and less character go digging for dirt. Once they have made up their mind about an individual, they start to look for confirming evidence. They search diligently to find all the negative aspects about the person. What’s worse, they often tell others about the dirt, and then those people go dirt mining, too. With everyone kicking up dirt around a person, it’s unlikely that the gold will ever be found.
So which will it be for the people around you? Are you digging for dirt… or for gold?
