The blog post where I write about goats.  Goats that climb trees.  And eat nuts. And play a part in producing something referred to as “liquid gold”.

I figured after last week’s post, things needed to be lightened up a bit.

So  I recently saw a TV documentary about these goats in Morocco that climb trees.  The tree climbing is odd enough in itself, but what happens next is something you really couldn’t make up if you tried.

They climb to get at the nuts of the Argania tree.  And nobody stops them, even though the nuts are valuable.  They actually want them to eat the nuts, because these nuts have the potential to become precious Argan oil.  Yes, the same oil – “liquid gold” –  you see now in shampoos and moisturizers and a plethora of other high-end beauty products.  But there’s a problem. The nuts are too hard to crack in their natural state, so they let the goats’ digestive tracks do the work.  Once the nuts have.. ahem.. passed “through” and been deposited on the ground, they’re gathered up (by some very brave people, might I add) and processed into oil.  Very. Expensive. Precious. Oil.

I really do think God must laugh at His creation sometimes.  Who would have thought that a goat would climb a tree, eat a nut, “refine it”, deposit it on the ground, and the end result is something people pay lots of money for?  Something precious from something, well, not so precious.

Not so far fetched, really.  God does the same thing in our lives.  Jeremiah 15:19 says, “If you return, then I will restore you.  Before Me you will stand.  And if you extract the precious from the worthless, You will become My spokesman.”  (NASB)

Extract the precious from the worthless.

There are situations in our lives that can seem crazy and hard.  We pass through some pretty yucky stuff.  That’s where we’re tempted to question God, begin to cry out that things don’t make sense and wonder why He would choose to put us through it. But you know, it could very well be that He intends to make something absolutely precious out of the process.

The extraction process is never easy.  Even after the Argania tree nuts go through that first assault, they still have to be pounded and ground down and pressed and pressed and pressed.  And only then does the precious golden oil begin to flow out.

“But He knows where I am going.
And when He tests me, I will come out as pure as gold.”  Job 23:10

When things don’t make sense, when you’re passing through the yuck and feel pounded and pressed down until you think you’ll break, think of the goat in the tree in Morocco.  And smile.  God does some crazy things in crazy ways sometimes, but the end result could very well be something…precious.