“When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord.” 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.”
93,000 miles and there goes the transmission. The outward appearance of my truck was great. All terrain tires, nice blue paint job, and a good looking interior, but that was not the whole picture. You see, the outward appearance was great. I have gotten many compliments on my truck, “nice truck” they would say. All was good until my transmission went south rather early. It was then that all the cool looking tires, paint job and interior lost their luster. Come to find out, the transmission shop that fixed my transmission told me that most of his business was fixing and rebuilding this model of truck’s transmission. The outward appearances don’t always tell the whole story.
Samuel did it again. He looked at Saul, a tall dark and handsome man, and the people chose him as their king. He stands here now before Jesse and sees the oldest of David’s brothers and thinks he has found another tall dark and handsome man that the Lord will surely pick. The Lord lets Samuel go through sizing up all of David’s brothers until none are left.
Maybe you are here and you have sized up everything you can get your hands on and it is still a big fat NO from the Lord. Verse 7 is for you. We often get so caught up in outward appearances so much that we forget that the Lord looks at the heart. Samuel actually had to ask if Jesse had anymore sons, meaning even David, in his father’s eyes, was not worthy enough to show to Samuel.
By this point, I would guess that Samuel is second guessing this whole anointing a new king thing, especially after what happened with Saul, because they are out of options. However, the Lord found a heart after his own in David. David’s heart was right before the Lord even at a young age. He was the youngest and the only one of Jesse’s sons that was not purposely picked to show to Samuel.
What have you been doing while other people are not around? Has your focus been on only your outward appearances instead of your character? Matthew 12:34 tells us, “The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Today, start a new habit. Start filling your mind and heart with the Word of God. It is not the size of the dog in the fight but rather the size of fight in the dog. What are you strengthening?
Prayer: Father, let us have a heart after you. Show us areas we can improve on when it comes to hearing you and following you. Help us look beyond what we can see. Fill our minds with your word so we can see rivers of living water pour out of us. Help us to see past appearances and our own version of what we see will be the answer. Change my heart oh God so I can see you. Amen.
Let It Go 
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