Can You See the Potential?

I've always had a love for antiques - not the glamorous, high end things you see come across the appraiser's table on Antiques Roadshow or the beautiful pieces that Sotheby's might have up for auction - but pieces that have some wear on them, some character. 

Recently a dear friend & I were driving down a country road and we passed a yard full of "treasures."  I made her stop and turn around.  She thought I was crazy!  And not many would blame her.  But I had spied it - on the back of a pickup truck in the yard was an old dresser.  Admittedly to her it didn't look like much so her diagnosis of me as crazy wasn't too far off.  But I saw it as something more.  To my friend it was an old piece of furniture that had been left out in the elements for far too long.  She saw that it had no knobs, chipping paint covered half of it and had been stripped off of the other half, the decorative pieces were missing, water spots were evident on the top, spiderwebs clung underneath...and she was right.  All of these things were true.  But I saw more.  I saw it as a beautiful, refinished piece with a dark stain.  I saw it with crystal drawer knobs, with all of the decorative pieces replaced (I later found them in the drawers!), I saw the beauty in the curved legs and the dovetail drawers.  And for $12 I couldn't resist it!  As crazy as my friend thought I was, she graciously helped me load the dresser into the back of her SUV and haul it home. 

My mother would tend to agree with my friend's analysis.  The dresser doesn't look like much to her either.  But my father can see beneath the chipped paint and missing pieces and see what I see.  Perhaps that's where I got it from; another trait inherited from my father...the ability to see something more.  Something better.  My father and I can see the potential in an old piece of furniture.  But can we see the potential in people?  I think my mother has us beat in this department!!

When we interact with people or meet someone new, how do we see them?  Do we see them as weathered and worn?  Do we see their blemishes and imperfections and label them unworthy of our time and effort?  Or do we see past that and see that they may have scars and spiderwebs but they just need someone to care; someone with concern enough to help them dust off the cobwebs, put on a new coat of paint and restore their lives into something more.  Do we see the potential in them?  Or do we leave them discarded on the side of the road where life has tossed them; hopeless and helpless with no future in sight.  What does God see? 

Question of the day:  Can you see the beauty in people or do you see the scars and blemishes?

My Roadside Treasure