“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 16:7, New International Version). 

God sent Prophet Samuel on a mysterious quest to find Israel’s next king, an individual whom God had already identified.  If God had already decided the next monarch, why would He not simply tell the new king directly or announce it from the mountaintop for the whole world to hear?  Why involve Samuel at all?

God’s activity almost always intertwines His truth and our trust.  The story is not just about a new king; it is also an account of Samuel’s faithfulness.  Samuel only knew one detail of God’s truth: the new king would be one of the sons of Jesse.  For Samuel to determine which one, he would have to trust God’s decision over his own assumptions.

When Samuel met the first son, he thought his task was one and done.  Not only was Eliab the firstborn and most logical choice, but his outward presence also met Samuel’s standard for royalty.  But before Samuel could anoint his new king, God stopped him: “People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  God challenged Samuel to look from a divine perspective.

After seven sons failed their interviews, Jesse dubiously acknowledged that he had one more boy.  This one was so unlike a king that Jesse had instructed him to babysit the flock while his older brothers met the prophet.  When the young son answered their summons, God told Samuel that he was looking at Israel’s next king.

How did God speak to Samuel?  That detail is missing, so it must not be vital to our understanding of the story.  What we do know is that Samuel received God’s word when he trusted God over his own preconceived notions of what a king looked like.  He stopped looking at the outside and began to look at the heart.

Within David and within each of us lives a reflection of the divine presence.  We are all vessels of the image of God Himself, for “…God created mankind in His own image…” (Gen. 1:27).  When Samuel recognized that image within David, he saw the young man whom God had created for the task.  To look at the heart is to see the divine presence of God that yearns to reveal His mark in this world through each of us.

We know that Samuel’s trust played a major role in the birth of our Lord, when Joseph and Mary traveled “…to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David” (Luke 2:4).  The way we see someone may also be vitally important.  The world is filled with individuals yearning to be free of society’s shallow, preconceived notions of who they are.  You may be the one person, following God’s mandate to look at the heart, who gives inspiration to that individual’s fulfillment of God’s purpose in their lives.  Your look may change their world.

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