Doing some excavating on his North Carolina farm 1799, Conrad Reed discovered a strange rock. Three years later, in 1802, a Fayetteville jeweler offered him $3.50 for the rock. It tuned out that the rock was gold, and had a value of $3,600. This was the beginning of the Reed Gold Mine. In those three years before learning he had a large gold nugget, Reed had been using the rock as a doorstop.

Like Reed, we are often ignorant to the true value of things. We often place the greatest significance on the incidental and neglect the eternal. Not surprisingly, a death, an illness, or another tragedy often makes us stop and think and to consider what is really important.

In explaining to the Christians of Corinth the true meaning and place of spiritual gifts, Paul touched on this point. Though all parts of the body are important, we tend to place the greater emphasis on some parts to the neglect of others. “Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked: That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another” (1 Corinthians 12:22-25).

As a simple comparison, in a week’s time, how does your time spent in grooming and caring for the body compare to the time spent in caring for the inner man? Paul prayed for Ephesians that God would grant them “according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man” (Ephesians 3:16). What is really valuable to you? Do you truly value the eternal over the temporal?