Hidden Gems

There’s a story about a man who was exploring
some 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 up some clay 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, to pass the time, he would throw
the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could
throw. He thought little about it until he dropped one of the 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 hundreds 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 hundreds
of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home thousands, but
he just threw it away.

You know sometimes, 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 by God.

There is a treasure in each and every one of us. The Bible
says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. I don’t think
he means just our physical bodies. I think he means our
spiritual selves, which are sometimes hidden from others
by the *earthen vessel*. But if you take the time to get to
know that person, and if you ask the Father to show you
that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins
to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.

Author Unknown