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 him, 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. I am so blessed by the gems of friendship I have with each of you. Thank you for looking beyond my clay vessel. |