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.