For years, generations of people have wondered how Stonehenge became Stonehenge. How did these massive stones end up where they are?
One theory is that the stones were moved from one of the Preseli Hills—150 miles away. To learn as much as possible about the stones and life surrounding them, archeologists have been digging on one of the hills for the last 90 years. But geologists have recently discovered that the archeologists have been digging on the wrong hill. The hill they should have been excavating is just over a mile away.
For 90 years, they have been digging in the wrong hole.
Dr. Richard Bevins, of the National Museum of Wales, who helped point out the discovery, said, “I don’t expect to get Christmas cards from the archaeologists who have been excavating at the wrong place all these years.” (Source)
When I read this story one morning, I shuddered to think about how miserable it must be to feel you have wasted a large portion of your life digging in the wrong hole. How miserable it must feel to discover you have squandered all this time chasing an illusion, working hard on something that in the end was the wrong thing to be working hard on.
Then I thought about people who don’t know the Lord. Some will learn at the end of their lives that they have been digging in the wrong hole. Unless they come to know Christ, they will learn, regardless of their level of success, that what they valued, pursued, and worshiped was temporary and meaningless. After all, what good is it to gain the whole world and lose your soul?
And I thought about our tendency—my tendency—to wander from what matters most, to chase after things that don’t matter and won’t matter, to long for things that are meaningless. After all, what good is it to achieve and acquire if we are digging in the wrong hole. Adrian Rogers once said, “Failure is succeeding at the wrong thing.”
How can we be rescued from digging in the wrong hole?
We would be wise to pray as Jonathan Edwards—“Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs!” Help us see this life through the lens of eternity.
Or as the apostle Paul wrote, if we have been raised with Christ, we must seek what is above, where Christ is. We must set our minds on what is above. For our old life is dead, and our new life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:1-3).
