Take Time To See People

Take Time To See People “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1st Samuel 16:7 A man was exploring caves by the seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag filled with more that a hundred 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 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. He immediately realized that he had just thrown away tens of thousands of dollars into the ocean. 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 this person as less important than someone more beautiful, stylish, well known or wealthy. We have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside this person. There is a treasure buried deep inside each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to know this person, and if we ask God to show us this 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 that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships, because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. Take the time to see the people in your world as God sees them. My Daily Devotional Volume III October 23 Robert William Brock, Jr.