Thursday, March 21, 2024

Look At This, But Not At That

"Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel.  And Samuel said to Jesse, "The Lord has not chosen these.".
And Samuel said to Jesse, "Are all the young men here?"  Then he said, "There remains yet the youngest, and there he is, keeping the sheep."  And Samuel said to Jesse, "Send and bring him.  For we will not sit down till he comes here."
1 Samuel 16:10-11 (NKJV)

Every day we are bombarded with information; some of it is information that we are looking for and some of it comes to us without our directly seeking it.  For example, we may be watching a television show, and then a commercial comes on.  We wanted to see the television show, but not necessarily what was on the commercial.  This same thing happens in social media, movies, television shows, and the news that we see.  There are things some people want us to see and hear, and other things that they do not.

God told Samuel to go to Jesse's house in Bethlehem to find the next king of Israel, but God did not tell Samuel specifically who the next king was going to be.  When Samuel arrived, he saw the oldest son Eliab and Samuel thought Eliab was the perfect choice, but Eliab was not God's choice.  What happened next is that Jesse brought out seven of his sons for Samuel to look at, but Jesse left out his youngest son, David, who was to be the next king.  Jesse wanted Samuel to look at some of his sons, but not all of them.

When Samuel arrived at Jessie's house to find the new king, Jesse only presented seven of his eight sons for Samuel to consider to be the king.  This same kind of thing still happens today; society, other people, and even the devil have things they want us to see and look at.  Just because the world or other people tell us to "look at this," and do something only based on what we have been shown, we need to listen to God to help us see what is right and to base what we do and believe on God's guidance, not just on what people have shown us.

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