Now
this concerns everybody, yes I mean everybody and that means you’re not
exempted from what I want to talk about today, we all do it and I’m
cocksure some of you did it yesterday while some will still do it today.
Some of us will even argue with me that it is what makes us humans,
that we’re only living up to our tags as ‘imperfect beings’.
What are you guilty of, what am I guilty of? I’m sure you’re already
itching to ask…I’ll tell you, we’re all guilty of the sin of condemning
others to the pillory of our hearts before we even get to meet or know
them personally. It is not uncommon for you to hear people describe
another fellow as ‘proud, arrogant, boring, pompous, rude, unfriendly,
tight-fisted, miser’ and all sorts of names without having said ‘hello’
to such persons at least once. I will drive home my point by starting
off with this short illustration. Please take a ride with me.
A
man was exploring caves by the seashore. In one of the caves he found a
big sack with a lot of hardened clay balls. It seemed as though 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 was
enjoying the whole show until he dropped one of the balls and it cracked
open on a rock and inside was a beautiful, precious stone. With
ethereal ecstasy, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls
with each containing a similar treasure.
He discovered he found thousands of dollars’ worth of jewels in the
20 or so clay balls he had smashed unto the rocks. Then it struck him
that he had been on the beach a long time with 50 to 60 clay balls
already thrown into the ocean with their hidden treasures. Instead of
thousands of dollars in treasures maybe he could have taken home tens of
thousands of dollars’ he said to himself, but he just threw them away,
away with their hidden treasures.
It’s
like that with people. We look at some people and what we see is the
external clay vessel. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, in
fact it wouldn’t fetch anything tangible if attempted to be sold, It
isn’t always beautiful or sparkling, no allure whatsoever so we discount
it. We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful,
stylish, fashionable, 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 person that you come across. If
you take out time to get to know that person, or if you allow God to
show you the hidden treasure in that person, then you’d discover that
the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine
forth.
I remember a particular lady that met a friend of mine recently, in
all fairness the lady is the talking type, oh boy she can talk, she’s
that gifted but my friend happens to be the quiet one, often speaking
few words. When this lady unleashes her tongue, you can’t but wonder how
God made talking so easy for some while some are in dire need of that
same gift (laughs). My friend was obviously getting fed up and he was
almost avoiding the lady until I stepped in and encouraged him to try
and know the young lady the more instead of concluding about her so
soon. Though at the stage of knowing her more but I can assure you that
the lady is showing traits of being a good lady.
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 God help us to see the people in our world as God sees
them.
Conclusively, do not judge anyone, it is the Father’s duty to judge,
the Holy Spirit’s duty is to convict while your’s is to LOVE…isn’t that
simple enough?
Put a smile on someone’s face today, do have a great day…(hugs)
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