1 . A man was exploring some caves by the seashore. In one cave he _________ a bag of hardened clay balls. It seemed that someone had _________ some clay and baked the balls in the sun. They didn’t look like _________ things, but they interested him, so he took the bag out of the cave with him.

As he walked along the beach he _________ the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could. He thought _________ about it until he dropped one of the balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone. _________, 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 _________, and then it struck him: Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have had tens of thousands, with the 50 or 60 clay balls with their _________ treasures which were now in the ocean. He just _________ the chance.

Sometimes it’s like that with __________. When we look at a person, we usually only see “the outside clay shell”. It isn’t always beautiful or shining, so we __________ the person; we see him as less important than someone more beautiful or more __________. But we haven’t taken the time to look for the __________ inside that person. If we spend the time getting to know that person, the clay will __________ and the brilliant jewel will shine. We are __________ made, not only with our physical bodies, but also with our spiritual selves, which are sometimes hidden from others by the “earthen shell”.