Look with God's eyes, not man's
JOE MILLER JR.

Joe Miller Jr. is pastor of First United Methodist Church in Newton.

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Back when I was an engineer, I worked with a man who was 6 feet 11 inches tall, and he was big all over. The company had to get him a custom desk that was high enough for him to get his legs under. He had to duck to walk through a standard sized door. He was an imposing sight.

Apparently Saul, the first king of Israel, was imposing as well. The Bible says that he stood head and shoulders above the crowd. Saul had eye appeal, but he did not work out, and God had to replace him. This is the story of the selection of his successor.

God sends Samuel to Bethlehem to the home of Jesse and his eight sons with orders to anoint a new king. Samuel has been through this before since he had also anointed Saul. In fact, Samuel had been through lots of missions for God and had served Him since he was a little boy.

Samuel knew God. He knew what God wanted. He spoke for God, and he knew what God was thinking- so he thought.

When Jesse paraded his sons in front of Samuel, Samuel knew which one God wanted to become king... "He looked on Eliab and thought, 'Surely the LORD's anointed is now before the LORD.'" But Samuel was wrong… how embarrassing.

Not only was he wrong, but God rebuked him for making judgments based on looks when God "looks on the heart." You know the rest of the story; Jesse paraded all of his sons before Samuel and had to call in the youngest who was in the pasture with the sheep. His name was David.

Maybe this is where we get the saying, "don't judge a book by the cover."

More importantly, there are a lot of people running around today implying that they speak for God or that they know what God's will is. Some of these people are politicians and some of them are high profile television preachers. Some might be people that you know. Remember, even Samuel was wrong about God's selection and made the mistake of seeing with human eyes rather than God's eyes.

Over the centuries, the one body of Christ has split into many pieces because some were convinced that they knew God's will and others did not. Don't we all love God? Perhaps if we all come together we can discern God's will for the world rather than trying to prove each other wrong.