Possessed by Gold

I recently read the following in “National Geographic”:

Like many of his Inca ancestors, Juan Apaza is posessed by gold. Descending into an icy tunnel 17,000 feet up in the Peruvian Andes, the 44-year-old miner stuffs a wad of coca leaves into his mouth to brace himself for the inevitable hunger and fatigue. For 30 days each month Apaza toils, without pay, deep inside this mine dug down under a glacier above the world’s highest town. For 30 days he faces the dangers that have killed many of his fellow miners – explosives, toxic gases, tunnel collapses – to extract the gold that the world demands. Apaza does all this, without pay, so that he can make it to today, the 31st day, when he and his fellow miners are given a single shift, four hours or maybe a little more, to haul out and keep as much rock as their weary shoulders can bear. Under the ancient lottery system that still prevails in the high Andes, known as the cachorreo, this is what passes for a paycheck: a sack of rocks that may contain a small fortune in gold or, far more often, very little at all.

Like Apaza, we too labor for a coming day. Every day we engage in a vicious grudgematch against sin. It’s a fight to change the channel for the sake of purity. It’s hard to beat the sunrise for the sake of reading Scripture. Many times serving others feels like pure pain.

But there’s a glorious day coming – a day when our labors for the sake of Christ will be gloriously rewarded. Every memory of the fight will be eclipsed by the glory of that day. So let’s live like Apaza. Let’s live this day in light of that day.