2009 – Day 100.Apr. 11 – Nobodies Into Somebodies

2009 – Day 100.Apr. 11 – Nobodies Into Somebodies

Passage of the Day: 1st Samuel 16: 1 – 11 … Link to study passage …

My Journal for Today: There is a great principle articulated by God, Himself, in this passage which depicts the story of God selecting His anointed successor to Saul by sending Samuel to the house of Jesse. The principle is found in verse 7 of 1st Samuel, where God says to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him [Jesse’s oldest son]. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

And that principle flies in the face of human logic; doesn’t it? It is simply not the way mankind operates when we must separate people from the pack to be our choice for leaders. Certainly we don’t operate that way now; do we? When you were choosing your friends when you were a kid, how did you choose? You wanted to hang with the popular dudes, didn’t you? How do we choose Presidents these days? We choose them by how they appear on TV, don’t we? But this is not how God does His choosing, which is clearly stated in our passage for today. No, God looks at the heart when He is selecting just the right person to carry out His will.

And that reverse human psychology was at the heart of what the Apostle Paul wrote in the New Testament as well. When he was writing to the very Greek oriented culture in Corinth, he wrote about how God does business, which was very different from the Greek ideal of choosing leaders based on popularity, beauty, or intelligence [not much has changed in over 2000 years; has it?]. Here’s what Paul wrote in 1st Cor. 1: 26 – 29 …

>>> 26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in His presence.

God actually does His picking for a task in a way that won’t allow for anyone to be puffed up with pride or bragging about his own abilities to get the job done. We know, as we read on in 1st Samuel, that God picked David, the youngest and weakest of Jesse’s sons to be the anointed king over Israel. As we’d say today, “Go figure!” And that’s exactly the point. We often can’t figure out why God does what He does because we’re more often looking for the confident and able to get the job done, … like a Lebron James in basketball or a Tiger Woods in golf. We’ll elect an Obama for President because of his human abilities and looks instead of his heart. But as God’s word says in Isaiah 55: 8-9 [link provided], quite often God works in ways that are way above our ways.

I hope we all can keep this over-riding principle in mind when we seek out someone to get the job done. We need to look for God’s choice; and above all we need to look at the heart of a person first and foremost when we do our selecting. Only when we have God’s selection will we be doing life God’s way and within His will.

My Prayer for Today: Oh Lord, You are God; and I am not. So, help me discern Your will in all things. Amen