One day in November, 2007, a team of staff and teen-aged students arrived early at a tiny, ramshackle building in downtown St. John’s on the Caribbean island of Antigua. Our mission on this trip was to present the gospel to the elementary schools, and to leave a printed curriculum that the teachers could use as a follow-up. We targeted two or three bare-bones schools a day, but this small school seemed the most deprived of all.

As we huddled together in the small, fenced-in schoolyard waiting to be invited in, I happened to glance down at the ground. The imprint of a shell in a white rock lay imbedded in the black dirt. “It’s a fossil!” I called out excitedly. One of our boys came rushing over to have a look, and helped me pry it out of the hard packed ground. The principal of the little school gave us permission to keep it. Why did no one in this school care that there was an fossil in a rock on their playground?” I wondered. Surely they would want to dig it up and keep it. To me it was a treasure, a real fossilized shell, but the local students here had just overlooked it.

How often we overlook something that is valuable, by not recognizing its worth. Something similar happened to Joseph when he was selecting a wife.

“Now Laban had two daughters. The older daughter was named Leah, and the younger one was Rachel. There was no sparkle in Leah’s eyes, but Rachel had a beautiful figure and a lovely face. Since Jacob was in love with Rachel, he told her father, ‘I’ll work for you for seven years if you’ll give me Rachel, your younger daughter, as my wife.’ ” ( Genesis 29:16-18 NLT)

Her father, Laban, agreed, but tricked Jacob into marrying Leah instead. He was later given Rachel as well, working for Laban another seven years. Jacob had overlooked Leah, who, being the elder, should have been given in marriage first, because she had weak or dull eyes. He didn’t know that it was Leah who would be part of the lineage of Jesus through her son, Judah. Leah was the real treasure, used by God in an unexpected way to accomplish His purposes through her.

“Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly.” (John 7:24 NLT)

The principal of our school in Canada shared how, with the working mothers’ permission, he would go right into the home of an unmotivated teen-aged boy to haul him out of bed, as he tended to miss so much school. At the time of our mission trip, however, this student was a favourite, full of Godly character, and was even labelled “team mascot” by one of the teams. The principal was able to discern that the student had real potential, a hidden treasure, and by persistence, dug him out of the dirt, so to speak.

Let’s not be quick to judge people by their outward appearance, but, in getting to know them, discover the real treasures that they are.

Prayer: Lord, thank You that You value each one of us. Help us, too, to see the treasure that lies under the surface of people we encounter. In Jesus’ name. Amen

Alice Burnett
Red Deer, Alberta, Canada