THE HIDDEN TREASURE

A man 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*.

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.