“What God sees in a person”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Sunday, March 19, 2023
1 Samuel 16:1-13 (Forward, p. 49) CEV p. 294
God decided, because of Saul’s faithlessness, that he could no longer be king and so set in motion events to have him ultimately replaced. Samuel was to be His agent in this endeavour. And so, to carry out His plan, Samuel was sent to Bethlehem to choose a new king from among the eight sons of Jesse.
But God’s choice was not at all what Samuel, or any of us, would have expected. The eldest son, Eliab, was tell and handsome, and according to a later narrative (1 Samuel 17:13), a seasoned warrior who fought in the armies of Saul. And so, he was a very likely candidate as king. The same could be likewise said about the next two brothers in line, Abinadab and Shammah: they too were soldiers in Saul’s army. We don’t know anything of the next four sons, but they too were ruled out of consideration. Only David, the youngest, who’d actually been ‘dismissed’, left out, of even being considered ‘in the running’, was left. He had been left outside in the countryside looking after the family’s sheep.
So, what does David have to commend himself? He is described as being healthy and good looking, with a sparkle in his eyes, but is any of that something that qualifies him? No, what the text says is that while humans look at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart. In verse 7, God says, “People judge others by what they look like, but I judge people by what is in their hearts.” So, it is what is in the heart that is crucial.
Actually, we see this all over the place in the Bible: people who were ‘written’ off by others, or even by they themselves, people who were considered highly unlikely, were chosen and used by God. Here’s just a few examples:
-Moses considered himself unsuitable for leading his people out of their bondage in Egypt. He suggests to God that he stutters and is therefore a poor spokesman for God. Now, he doesn’t mention this, but the fact that he was a wanted and escaped felon also would be a strike against him;
-both Isaiah and Jeremiah considered themselves unsuitable or unworthy, Jeremiah because he was too young, and Isaiah becausehe was sinful and dwelt among sinful people;
-James and John, men so well known for their explosive tempers and fiery temperaments that they were nicknamed the ‘sons of thunder’, were hardly the best candidates to follow the ‘Prince of Peace’;
-John Mark, the young man who ‘bailed out’ and left for home after being part of the mission of Barnabas and Paul, was, by all intents and purposes out of any future consideration for missionary work;
-and Paul himself, Paul of Tarsus, the onetime persecutor of the infant Church, who would have ever thought that God might choose and use him? Why, could anyone really trust somewhat quite so changeable or flighty in terms of his allegiances?
And so, the list could go on and on. And, is this not also true of each of us. Each of us has flaws, each of us is hampered in some way by our upbringings or our past experiences, or by something else. But God sees past all that. He sees us as we are—and, as we might become. He sees our hearts, our innermost beings, and evaluates us on that basis. And, on that basis, anything is possible with Him. Yes, you and I, even such people as ourselves, can be of use to God. Amen.
Forward notes: “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart’” (verse 7).
“I like to think of heaven as a dimension next door. Physicists often speak of multiple dimensions existing side by side and that it is possible to move from one universe or dimension to the next, like air passing through a screen door. The reason we cannot flow through is because the screen blocks us but God as spirit moves freely.
“I say all of this because there is so much that we cannot see, that we cannot understand, that is hidden in other dimensions. Consider the sun: our human eyes can physically see only about 42 percent of its light. We are blind to the rest, to the ultraviolet rays and infrared rays.
Yet, God sees it all; God moves freely between and among dimensions. Our faith calls us to better vision, seeing life more accurately, seeing ourselves more honestly, seeing as God sees and not as we see.”
Moving Forward: “Imagine what it would be like to see others as God sees them.”