Clay Balls
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
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. I am so blessed by the gems of friendship I have
with each of you. Thank you for looking beyond my clay vessel.
***********************
Pass this on to
another CLAY
BALL