Clay Balls

Clay Balls
A man was exploring caves by the seashore.  
In one of the caves he found a canvas bag in
bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone  
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 one 
contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of
dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had
left. it struck him that he had been on the beach a long 
time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls 
with their hidden treasures, into the ocean waves.  
Instead of thousands of dollars  he could have taken 
home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!
 
It 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.