A man was exploring caves by the seashore. In
one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay
balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in
the sun to bake. They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man
so he took the bag out of the cave with him.
As he strolled
along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into
the ocean as far as he could. He thought little about it until he
dropped one of the balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a
beautiful, precious stone.
Excited the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure.
He
found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls
he had left. Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time.
He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden
treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in
treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he just threw
it away.
It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe
even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look
like much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling so we
discount it. We see that person as less important than someone more
beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the
time to find the treasure hidden inside that person by God.
There
is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get
to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He
sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem
begins to shine forth.
May we not come to the end of our lives
and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because
the gems were hidden in bits of clay.
May we see the people in our world as God sees them.
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