Parker Inspirations

1 Samuel 16:7, “But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.”

Look all around you and you see many people. Different walks of life. Different Cultures. Yet they all have one thing in common, humanity. All people are the same physically, two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, a body, two arms and two legs. You get the picture. The only things that may be different on the outside is the color of their skin. The world looks at the differences not the similarities. When we focus on the differences many times, we miss greatness. In the verse above God told Samuel to not look on the outside.

Later in 1 Samuel 17 we see the greatness of David as he trusted God to kill Goliath. The Bible even says that David was a man after God’s own heart. Because he was seeking God and depending on God’s power, he accomplished great things. Now we could focus on the sin in David’s life and miss the greatness of God in his life. God showed the sin, but he focused on the good things that happened because of David’s desire to walk with God.

I believe this teaches us that sin is there but putting God first and seeking God should be our main focus. When we are seeking God, we are seeing our own lives and what God wants us to do. So many times, we focus on the outward behavior of someone and make a judgment. We do not know what is going on in their lives. Inside a person could be at perfect peace with God or be dealing with a tragedy that overwhelms them and they do not know what to do. There are people in Church that are faithful and working hard to seek God and depend on his power in their life. At the same time, they are dealing with things that we could never imagine.

We should be nice to people, because we do not know what they have in their life right now; The tragic lose of a loved one, a major financial crisis, trouble at home or work, sexual assault by their boss, or (fill in the blank). I do not want to make the list any longer as there are many things’ people go through. When we see someone not acting the way they normally do we need to not make assumptions. We can never know exactly what is going on inside. We can encourage them with a smile or a gesture of kindness that lets them know we are there for them. We do not need to know details of their lives; God knows everything already. We must lift them up in prayer. Let God be God.

If we take a close look in our own lives and make sure we are seeking God, we will not have time to look at the outside of others. Our number one priority is our walk with God.