Precious Stones

 

Precious stones, we know who made them, but who made them precious? Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, at the end of the day what makes those particular rocks so special? Is it the shine, the glisten that happens when the sun’s rays bounce off their hard surface? Or is it the limited quantity that make them so valuable and coveted? How can it be that a rock dug out of the ground could make men steal, kill, and destroy to possess a stone? The aforementioned stones make beautiful necklaces, and who could imagine a wedding taking place without a ½ carat diamond proclaiming the union to the wedding congregation on hand. I honestly don’t have an exact answer on how this all came to be, but I’m pretty sure it was all a human thing. We made precious stones precious, and mankind has made them valuable, but in the scope of what really matters, what value do “precious” stones really possess?

I suppose in the world of supply and demand the appropriate theory to explain the value of a stone would be the less of something that exists the more valuable that something is. My question is, valuable for what? I know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and somewhere along the way the beauty of a diamond caught the eye of a beholder and the rest is as they say history. Right? Well probably something like that. So, staying with that same line of thinking, the beholder had to have the beautiful, glistening rock so he went out to find his own. For the sake of our story, let’s say he couldn’t find his own. What is he to do? His mate would look stunning with that beautiful rock hanging around her neck and he wants to give it to her really bad, so what is he to do? Well one of two things, he either goes to the man who possesses the diamond and offers to trade him out of it, and if that doesn’t work then he makes a plan to obtain the rock any way he has to so that he possesses what he covets so bad. For the man who possesses the diamond, he is now proud that he owns something that someone else wants. He sees the opportunity to find out exactly how bad this potential buyer wants to own his rock, so he holds out, upping the ante just to see how valuable this little rock might be. To top this off, our owner of this little diamond happens to know where a whole cave full of these little diamonds can be found and he starts making plans to offer diamond necklaces to others, because he now sees the potential these little rocks possess. All of a sudden, a shiny little rock dug out of a rock cave wall has become an object of desire and desire makes it valuable. Otherwise it’s a rock.

I hope this brief look at my version of how a diamond or any other precious stone became precious made sense. Think about all the things that are “valuable” in our culture. Ferraris are really nice cars, but so are Hondas, right? What makes a Ferrari so much more valuable than a Honda? My guess is because there isn’t a Ferrari manufacturer speckled all across our continent or even all across Europe. There is tiny city in Italy, Maranello, where every Ferrari that roars down the road has been manufactured, and that is the only place that makes these “valuable” cars. Isn’t a Honda car valuable? Of course it is, if you were stranded in some remote desert part of the world and someone offered you a Honda Accord to get you out of there, I don’t think any of us would say, “No thanks, I believe I’ll just wait on a Ferrari”. Maybe it’s about time to do a little self-check on what we deem as valuable and how much time we put into obtaining what really is valuable for eternity.

Jesus made it very clear in his teaching, “No one can serve two masters: either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.” Matthew 6:24. Notice Jesus didn’t name one over the other, he just says you’ll love one and pretty much despise the other. What we place value on gets our attention. Why are gold and silver so valuable? Honestly, it is the accessibility, or better the inaccessibility, to possessing it due to the finite amount available to possess. If we suddenly were transported to a planet that the surface was made of gold, all of a sudden what we have labeled a precious metal would be worth about as much as a shard of granite in my drive is worth today.

Do you have “treasures” that you value possibly a little too much? Jewels, gold, silver, cars, trucks, baseball cards, comic books, or any of the hundreds of other collectibles that we covet just a bit too much. You know you can’t take those with you at the end of the day, right? You can pass those down, but at some point, they can’t take them with them either. “Naked I came into this world from my mother’s womb, and naked I will return there.” Job 1:2.

 Recalibration time. What grabs our attention gets our attention, that goes without saying. If it is important to us, diamonds and rubies or gold and silver, then we spend our time and effort working to possess more of it because it is valuable to us. How valuable are your children to you? How much does your family glisten in your eye? Is your relationship with the God that created you and purposed your life important enough to you that you make it a priority to possess? I’m reminded about the young, rich man in Matthew 19 that asked how to obtain eternal life, and when Jesus told him to give all of his riches away he turned around and walked away. You can’t serve God and possessions. The question is, what is valuable to you? Precious rocks or the Precious Rock that we can stand upon in all of life’s ups and downs. At the end of this life what will you be leaving to your grandchildren? Will it be a pile of rocks that man has made valuable, or will it be a legacy of faith, trust, and persevering obedience to the One that gives the eternal gift of life to you and to me?

Coach Carter