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 seemed someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake. They intrigued the man so he took the bag out of the cave with him.
As he strolled along the beach, he threw the clay balls one at a time out into the sea as far as he could. He thought little about it until he dropped one of the balls which cracked open to reveal a beautiful, precious stone.
Excited the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls and found each one 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 that he had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the sea and had missed a golden chance to make so much money.
It’s like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel which 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 found time to find the real treasure hidden inside that person by God.
Everybody is unique. There is a treasure in each and every one of us. 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 miss a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay.
Author Unknown
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