The term a rough diamond is generally used to describe something or someone of great potential that simply hasn’t been refined or developed enough to be appreciated as much as it should be.
There’s an old saying, ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover.’ What that means is you can’t tell whether a book is interesting or not just by looking at the cover. You have to get inside a book to know what it is really like. You have to read it. People are like that too. You can’t tell what a person is really like just by observing his or her appearance.
Yesterday we talked about the Brooklyn Bridge in the sense of how it has stood the test of time, not by its looks or how it appears on the outside, but success depends on what is hidden. Remember there are three ways in which we have our lives: the public life, private life and personal life.
I’m sure many of you are acquainted with a Disney movie of Aladdin and today let’s take an extract from that movie to show what I’m saying about our lives.
There is a scene where Aladdin (who had been previously described as the diamond in the rough) was pretending – he was being a hypocrite. The word hypocrite means pretender or play actor – they don’t do it for the act itself, but as a means to impress others.
You see Aladdin isn’t a prince by birth, but the genie Aladdin has found gives him all he needs to make him look like a prince: wardrobe, riches, servants, you name it.
The problem is Jasmine is not impressed. It doesn’t work! Jasmine isn’t attracted to the stuff. She already has it. She wants a person who sees her for whom she is.
When they first met in the street she fell in love with Aladdin just the way he was.
That is how God sees you just the way you are.
But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’
1 Samuel 16:6-7
King David, like Aladdin, was a rough diamond. God though knew David’s heart. David’s private life and personal life was known by God. God saw David out there attending the sheep on the lonely hillside away from view.
Just like the bridge, people look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. God knew David and God knows you.
The good news is that God sees not what you have been, or what you are today, but what you could be. God chose Moses a stutterer, Jacob a liar and deceiver, Rahab a prostitute, Esther a beauty queen, the disciples and Saul the persecutor of the Christian faith – all to change the world.
The Bible says that God searches the hearts of men (and women) (Romans 8:27). That means that God looks deep inside human beings instead of evaluating us by the way we look on the surface. God knows every thought of ours. God knows us the way we truly are, not just the way we seem to be.
Aladdin had to come to the decision that pretending to look good was and never will be the answer to a successful life.
If you are wondering about your life let me encourage you from a verse:
He (Jesus) who has begun a good work will continue to do it.
Philippians 1:6
Invite Jesus to take control and you will see that verse unfold in your life. No pretending, just allowing God to do His work. Do not worry if you are a rough diamond, just remember you are a diamond.
Stay safe and Blessed.