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A man was exploring
caves by the seashore with his dog. 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 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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