King's Corner: Hidden in the Hard Part

Can you recognize the opportunity waiting for you—or does it look too much like work to bother with?

In the summer of 1859, miners in Dayton, Nevada thought they were chasing gold. For nearly four weeks after June 8, they sifted creek beds and mountain soil, tossing aside a heavy, sticky “blue mud” that clogged their tools, slowed their progress, and tested their patience. Gold was the prize. Gold was easy to separate. Gold was worth ten times more than silver.

The problem was, there wasn’t much gold.

Day after day, the miners worked and failed. They dug, panned, carried, and sorted, only to come up short again. Each evening ended the same way—tired bodies, dirty hands, and empty pans. It’s one thing to fail quickly. It’s another to fail slowly, honestly, and repeatedly, while doing everything you know how to do.

They hadn’t come all that way to be mediocre miners. They hadn’t endured the journey just to discover they weren’t very good at this. The temptation must have been strong to conclude that nothing worthwhile was there at all—or worse, that they were the problem.

But failure doesn’t always mean nothing is happening. Sometimes it means something is being learned.

The miners weren’t foolish; they were committed. They weren’t lazy; they were persistent. What they failed to recognize was that the value they were looking for didn’t look the way they expected. The heavy blue mud they kept discarding—the nuisance slowing everything down—was silver ore. And not just a little. There was nearly ten times as much silver as gold.

In the meantime, they were literally repairing streets and filling potholes with what would soon make them wealthy.

Gold is cooperative. You pan for it, and it politely separates from the dirt. Silver is not. It bonds with almost anything and requires chemical processing to free it. It’s tempting to focus on the rare, easy win right in front of you, even when surrounded by abundant potential that simply demands more effort.

Sometimes the harshness of the challenge hides the opportunity.

Back then, the difficulty wasn’t just underground. Many who came here from California endured long treks over unforgiving mountain trails, only to climb Mount Davidson and discover there was little housing, poor shelter, and a lack of basic necessities. Mining itself was grueling work, especially if you tried to do it alone.

But Nevada had something unusual going for it. In most mining regions, wealth lies deep underground and requires large teams and significant resources. That’s why so many mining towns grew large—they had to. Here, the climate concentrated silver into dense gray crusts right on the surface. You could shovel opportunity straight off the ground.

If you were willing to see it—and willing to work.

Have you ever talked with someone and realized that something obvious to you wasn’t obvious to them at all? In fact, they’d never even noticed it. We all have blind spots, and we all have sightlines. There are things you naturally see and understand that others miss entirely. That ability isn’t accidental. It’s a gift. And when you ask God to help you recognize it—and guide how you use it—it can become a compass for your life.

History offers more than one example of difficulty disguising opportunity. In the late 1700s, Franciscan missionaries in California grew muscat grapes to make wine. When silver was later discovered near Six Mile Canyon, the whole western region suffered a devastating drought. Everywhere grapes withered on the vine. The missionaries prayed, convinced they were about to lose everything.

Then one of them had an idea.

They took the shriveled grapes into town and sold them as locally grown “Peruvian delicacies.” That small pivot became the beginning of the Sun-Maid Raisin Company. What looked like failure turned out to be the product.

Sometimes the turning point is simply asking God how to respond, rather than reacting.

My dad, Mark King, had a knack for that.

Before moving here, he worked as an electrician at McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento. The base had countless narrow alleys between buildings that made convenient shortcuts. One day, Mark parked his van in one while loading up after finishing a job. A jeep pulled up behind him and couldn’t get through. The driver leaned hard on the horn.

Mark tried to start the van. Nothing.

The horn continued—louder, longer, and with growing enthusiasm.

Mark finally walked back, motioned for the driver to roll down his window, and handed him the keys. “If you’d like to try starting my van,” he said, “I’ll stay back here and lean on your horn.”

There was a pause—then a roar of laughter from the back seat. The passenger turned out to be the base commander. He told his driver to find another route, and before long, they were all friends.

The situation didn’t change. Mark did.

If you’re willing to ask God to help you see what you uniquely see, to handle situations with grace instead of frustration, and to let Him shape who you’re becoming, you may discover that the dense gray crusts in your own life aren’t obstacles at all.

They might just be the opportunity you’ve been overlooking.

Jeff Headley is pastor of the Dayton Valley Community Church, and a storyteller who blends humor, honesty, and hope. His weekly column reflects on resilience, grace, and the surprising ways faith shows up in ordinary life.