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 clay 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 had just thrown 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.
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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