Wisdom Nugget: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."
One of the most scary things in life is "closed doors" because you don't know what lies behind them. We are all scared to leave the known for the unknown and the familiar for the unfamiliar. When life suddenly hits you with a closed door (a loss of job, a failed marriage, a visa denial, a business collapse etc) the fear of "so what happens to me now ?" often leave us with that gnawing sense of hopelessness and a paralyzing helplessness.
Dr. Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ tells this story of a famous oil field called Yates Pool: During the depression this field was a sheep ranch owned by a man named Yates. Mr. Yates wasn’t able to make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch. With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others) had to live on government subsidy.
Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. Then a seismographic crew from an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil on his land. They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract. At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well came in at 80,000 barrels a day. Many subsequent wells were more than twice as large. In fact, 30 years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day. And Mr Yates owned it all. The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and mineral rights. Yet, he’d been living on relief. A multimillionaire living in poverty.
This is the sad paradox of most people. Treasures are hidden in trash, destinies in destitutes, messages in a mess, gain in pain and miracles in mistakes.
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