Miner or Traveler?

I'm in this stats class for social science majors that looks at different research methods and a few weeks ago we were discussing all the different forms of interviewing and what's considered 'good' vs. 'bad' interviews. So we essentially spent 3 hours in a seminar chatting about the proper way to ask people questions. Wow when I think about it like that I can't believe I fork out money for this stuff. Anyways, the point is my Prof brought up two different ways you can approach an interview, one is as a miner and the other is as a traveler. This of coarse got me thinking; let me explain.

As a miner you are generally looking for something specific, spending days, weeks, months, even years searching out one thing, often under ground, in a dark and dungy space. For all intensive purposes lets say your looking for gold. So as your chipping away, digging, gold is on the mind, that's what your thinking about, nothing else. Where as, a traveler is on a grand adventure, taking in the surrounding, coming across all sorts of treasure. I suppose you could find gold while traveling but you'll also find opulent valuables along your journey. My point is that while mining may in the end give us what we're looking for, we may not end up with what we actually want, and could miss out on the beauty surrounding, the treasures that are right in front of us. This is not to encourage a lifestyle devoted to aimless wander with no goals. Procrastination and a life with no intention is not the idea here. This is also in no way meant to bash mining, well unless it's used to exploit other peoples resources for a profit, rather it's to encourage you to re-examine the way you think. Love is the ultimate goal and to start that we have to know the one who is Love. Albert Einstein said "logic will get you from A-Z; imagination will get you everywhere." I think in all of us there is a desire for this, for more.

Believe me, I'm a master miner, I love to dig. You see miners (in terms of interviewing) have their questions thought out, they already know what their looking for and even if the conversation takes a different turn they are unwilling to bend, to explore the new avenue., flexibility is not an asset to them, they're after a single answer. However, the closer I get to God, the more conversations we have, the more I realize that I'm actually being called to travel, to explore not just explain. God absolutely wants to give us answers to our questions and He promises that He will but most of all He wants to live life with us, to go on an adventure, and yes, adventures have conflict. As Peter Pan puts it "To love would be an awfully big adventure," and it's true, it is.

You see, I often bring my lists, my well thought out questions to God and ask him for answers and He usually answers with something that has nothing to do, at the time, with what I'm inquiring. This is not to confuse me, it's to help me consider that I may not be searching out the right thing. God has so much to teach us, to show us, we have to be willing to be taught though, to not think of it so much as an interview but as a conversation. In conversation, you don't know what will be asked, you don't go into it thinking about all the things your going to say or not say. Unless you rehearse what you're going to say in the mirror with yourself as I used to do as a kid, nervous that I might sound silly if I was talking to someone important (some of you will know what I'm talking about). Either way, we can still choose not to chat about certain stuff but with God it's safe. God's interested in being known, he doesn't just want to answer our questions.

So are you going to mine out information with your well thought out query or will you embrace this journey and discover something valuable even if you weren't looking for it? When all is said and done God is good, He loves you and wants you to know this in your heart. He will explain stuff to you, but as one of my favorite verses in Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "God has made everything beautiful in it's time. He has set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." If this is true, which I believe it is, then we can rest that all our muddles and pain will be made glorious, even if we don't understand beginning to end in this story!

For
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by frost."
~J.R.R. Tolkien