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Clay
Balls
Author Unknown
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.
Contributed
by
Lois Boettge
Copyright
© 2006, Jace Carlton. All International Rights Reserved.
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