Cannot See As God Sees

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.” 

                                                                                     1 Sam 16:7 NIV

I am color blind. Both of my sons inherited that gene from me, as well. When my oldest son was first learning his colors he had a rough time of it. He did great in Math and reading; but, the color chart was something else. It did not help that it was me who was also unable to clearly discern colors who was helping him learn.

When my youngest son came home and showed the family his new "dark green" car he found out that it was purple. That misperception was kind of understandable as it was speckled paint that changed a bit when the sun shone on it. John is a photographer. It amazes me that one who is color challenged can produce such awesome work. He also works at for an electrical company and does various kinds of wiring and running cable jobs at which he really needs to be able to discern the various colored wires clearly. Recently, he received a pair of glasses for color blind people to help him at work. I tried them on. Wow! They work! I could see the colors around me much more vividly.

We all see things from slightly different perspectives. Our eyes do not see exactly the same things as others do. Sometimes the difference in our perceptions is totally physiological. It may be genetic or a health issue. Other times it might have more to do with our environment and the impact our experiences have had on our perspective of life and of people and even of God. 

Neither are any of us truly capable of seeing as God sees. We have a tendency to see only what is visible; the outward appearance. But, God sees right through the visible to know who we really are. His vision is not limited to those things that are seen; but, the things that are unseen, as well.

What we see with our eyes we often accept as the only truth for us. Yes, we judge others by what our eyes see. We fail to see that there is more to them than the outward appearance. What we see with our eyes often puts the brakes on so that we cannot go any further to see the real person. We refuse to go further to see and to know the heart.

Samuel was to anoint the new king of Israel. He saw Jesse's son, Eliab, an outstanding man in appearance and thought for sure this would be God's next choice for king. But, it was not. God chose the youngest son of Jesse, a mere shepherd boy. 

Our vision is not perfect only God can see all things perfectly. May God help us to see past the seen to those things which we cannot see so that we might learn to not judge as quickly as we have a tendency to do.

God's Peace - Pr. J

Don't Sweat The Small Stuff

"I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."  Eph 4:1-3 NIV

I wrote no blog yesterday. The internet and cable television went down late Friday afternoon during a storm. I called it in. At first the man on the other end of the line said since I was the only one who was down in the area they probably wouldn't be able to send a tech out until Tuesday after the holiday; but, he would try to get them to call me Saturday morning (while I was at an appointment) to set up a time for them to come out and fix it. He had walked me through the usual, unplug the modem and plug it back it. I've been dealing with modems for a few years and already had done that; but, I patiently complied anyway, even as I explained that there had just been a bad storm and I was pretty sure I wasn't the only one who had lost their connections in the neighborhood. About an hour later I received a call from some one else from this company telling me that they had just declared an area outage and assured me they were sending out a tech to take care of it. She didn't say when; but, for some reason I assumed that evening. I let my son (who was previously a tech for another company) know that they were coming out. He laughed saying that I would probably have it back up and running the next morning around 10. He was right. The neighbors informed me that the tech had just left when I returned home from an appointment at about 10:15 yesterday morning.

Therefore, I wrote no blog yesterday. If I can't do it early in the morning, I rarely find time during the rest of the day and yesterday was no different. My days tend to be pretty full. There were plenty of other doors that were open; plenty of other directions to go in and to do.

I am getting better at having patience with cable and satellite companies. I have learned to wait on them without getting upset. I did not even roll my eyes; at least not more than once. I don't watch much television so that is never a problem. I have learned to wait on many things. Everything does not always go as I plan. But, life continues. There is no sense getting upset about something so minor and that we have no control over. There are so many things in this world that are so much worse than the internet not working or a television show or a computer game being disrupted. It can even be a good thing when we lose our connection with the world wide web from time to time.

Some of the things that we lose patience with are pretty trivial compared to the troubles others suffer in the world. It would be best to ignore these minor obstacles and just move on past or over them. Don't let them interfere with what God has called you to do. Take advantage of what might seem to be a hindrance; because, it just might be a door opening for you. 

God's Peace - Pr. J