Always Look On The Inside

I remember reading a story once 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 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 had tens of thousands, but
he just threw it all 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
hidden in 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.

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand,
nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship;
it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when
he discovers that someone else believes in him and
is willing to trust him with his friendship.