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 take 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 and 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 and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees him, 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.

But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.  The Lord does not look at the things a man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).

--via H.O.P.E. Ministries publication

Back to Contents Does God Exist?, JulAug07.