Roy Whetstine was a rock collector whose two sons each had given him five dollars to buy a rock for them at a rock show. One table had a Tupperware container with a large potato-sized rock surrounded by a lot of agates. The sign read: “Any stone $15.” Roy picked up the big rock and asked, “You want fifteen dollars for this?”
The man replied, “No. I just put that there to fill up the space. You can have it for ten since it isn’t as pretty as the agates.”
Roy bought it, got a receipt, and tried to calmly as possible walk away and get into his car to leave. He had just purchased the largest known star sapphire—1509 ct.—valued at 2.5 million dollars uncut and about 10 million dollars cut.
So many of us spend our time looking at pretty agates distracted by this world and cares of life that we failed to see the sapphires of God’s kingdom.
Roy was a real life example of the merchant looking for fine pearls except Roy basically paid nothing for his treasure. It didn’t really cost him that much. Jesus’ example shows a man that takes everything that he has traded for and everything that he owns and uses it to get this one pearl. This single pearl that he has been searching all over for. It is the one pearl that he only dreamed of one day finding. In fact, this one pearl was more spectacular than any of his wildest dreams.