What kind of spiritual activity produces gold, silver and precious stones?
Secret prayer—spending fifteen or twenty minutes on your knees with nobody aware of what you are doing—produces gold, silver, and precious stones. This contrasts with outward religious busyness driven by wrong motives, such as proving yourself better than others, which produces only wood, hay, and stubble.
Les teaches that the determining factor is motive, not mere activity. He illustrates with a woman who planned to bake 25 pies to prove she could do more than the preacher's wife; her wrong motive made it wood, hay, and stubble. Les explains that many Christians are busy, busy, busy, doing things for the sake of other people, but not for the right motive. By contrast, he says you can better spend 15 or 20 minutes on your knees in prayer with nobody aware of what you're doing, and it will be gold, silver, and precious stone. So secret, motive-driven prayer produces lasting reward, while frivolous activity yields nothing but wood, hay, and stubble.