Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: ANCIENT (06/04/20)
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TITLE: The Greatest Treasure | Previous Challenge Entry
By Tammy Ortung
06/10/20 -
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As they approached a narrowing along the path, they took off their packs, turned sideways and started shuffling through a tight opening between two jagged walls. Charly winced when her knee scraped against a sharp rock. About thirty feet beyond, the constricted space opened into a large cavern with ample room to navigate. Flashlights against the limestone cast a translucent hue that illuminated the path before them. Charly’s excitement mounted with each step.
Friends had begun to worry about her “illogical obsession.” They thought she’d invested too many years pursuing a myth. A fantasy. They couldn’t understand her maniacal fixation on this treasure.
She had diligently gathered all the information she could find on the Cave in the school library, local book stores and eventually ventured out to online resources. After reading an Ottoman soldier’s journal she’d seen on some obscure website that specialized in ancient book sales, she knew she’d found the holy grail.
She and her team had immediately collected their excavation gear and booked the next flight to the Ben Gurion Airport in Jerusalem. When they’d arrived two days earlier, their guide had taxied them to the cave and they set up camp.
According to the journal, three cases of gold were buried in Zedekiah’s Cave. The soldier outlined specific landmarks leading to the site where the treasure could be found. Years earlier, a distant relative approached the Israeli Minister of Finance claiming he knew where the gold was buried. He offered twenty-five percent of the gold’s worth for permission to search for it. The government agreed. Yet after months of extensive exploration, the cases were never recovered.
Charly stopped to examine the map sketched inside the journal before continuing down the path. The gradual upward trail transformed into a steep incline. They climbed slowly. Charly paused about halfway up the slope, gasping, unable to catch her breath. The dense air was suffocating. She forced herself to trudge forward until the trail began to descend and they all breathed easier. About twenty minutes later, they rounded a corner and Charly spotted a huge stalactite, at least six feet in diameter. Is this the one described in the journal? She wondered.
They noticed loose gravel on the cave floor directly below the massive hanging icicle, remnants from when officials had dug a deep hole during their search years earlier. What they hadn’t known—and Charly and only recently discovered—was that the treasure wasn’t located directly beneath the stalactite, but three feet to the left of it.
They shrugged off their backpacks, pulled out shovels and picks, and started digging. Hours later, sweaty and exhausted from their labors, they had tunneled two feet under the limestone. They were almost there.
Charly heard a thud as her shovel hit something solid and started digging faster. Murmurs of excitement rose up behind her. Yet, instead of chests filled with gold, she found a large tube wedged beneath the rocky surface. She tugged hard until the tube came loose, then she opened the container and peered inside. She reached in and gently pulled out an ancient script. Almost reverently, she unrolled the scroll.
“My gifts are better than gold, even the purest gold, ” (Proverbs 8:19a) she read aloud. She glanced at the stunned expressions of her crew. Their disappointment was palpable.
“Let’s see if there’s anything else,” she said optimistically. Yet after further excavation, they realized the gold was gone—if it had ever existed in the first place. They slowly gathered their gear and began the journey back toward the cave entrance.
As Charly kept rehashing the proverb in her mind, she became convinced that God had left this message specifically for her. How had she gotten so far off track? “Lord, thank you for reminding me to seek your wisdom above all else,” she prayed. “Forgive me for wasting so many years searching for worldly wealth and fame. From now on, I choose to seek only you.”
Sunlight welcomed them as they stepped out of the cave. Its warmth reached out like God’s sweet caress and Charly realized she had found the greatest treasure of all.
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