LifeWay Explore the Bible Series for October 12: Embrace God’s perspective

We all have a tendency to be surprised when things happen in a way that is … well, that is surprising. If the sun were to rise in the west one morning, that would be surprising, as it would if roosters started laying eggs (and square ones at that), if the price of gasoline dropped to a nickel a gallon or if Elvis was discovered still living in the basement at Graceland. 

But we really have no reason to be surprised when things happen exactly according to processes or principles we have been told about beforehand. At the risk of belaboring the point, it is surprising such a thing should surprise us.

For example, consider these words from 1 Corinthians 1:26-29: “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”

In this passage, the Bible clearly indicates that God chooses the unlikeliest of human instruments in order to move his divine plans forward. But for some odd reason, we sometimes still get caught off guard when we observe God choosing those who might be written off as unusable by the world’s standards, to do great things in the work of his kingdom.

It is this very principle which comes to front and center in God’s choice of a new king for Israel, which is described in 1 Samuel 16.

Saul’s consistent disobedience to God rendered him incapable of effectively leading Israel. God already had chosen Saul’s successor, and the time had come to begin the process of making him king.

God instructed Samuel to go to Bethlehem to the home of a man named Jesse, and to anoint as king the one of that man’s sons whom God would indicate (16:1-3). Arriving in Bethlehem, Samuel prepared himself and Jesse’s family for this moment by offering a sacrifice and consecrating Jesse and his sons. 

The first son whom Samuel saw was Eliab, the eldest. Eliab was also possibly the largest physically, and to Samuel’s eyes was the most obvious choice. He probably thought, “This has got to be the one—he’s tall, good-looking, a natural-born leader if ever there was one.”

Samuel was absolutely certain; but he also was absolutely wrong. God informed Samuel he was making his choice on the basis of an entirely different set of qualifications than Samuel was: “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (16:7).

Samuel went on down the list of candidates as six more sons of Jesse were brought before him, and six more times the prophet received clear indication from God that none of them was the one he had chosen to be Israel’s next king (16:8-10). 

Finally, Samuel asked Jesse if those seven were all his sons. Jesse admitted there was one more, the youngest, the possibility of whose selection as king was so remote his father hadn’t even bothered to call him in from the pasture where he was tending the family’s flock of sheep.

But David was brought in from the fields, and as soon as Samuel saw him, he received assurance from God that this young man—as unlikely a candidate for king as might be found among all the residents of Bethlehem—was indeed his choice (16:12). Though small in physical stature, David was big where it counted: His heart belonged totally to God. 

As we look back over this passage, there are a number of ideas which raise their hands and clamor for our attention. Many of those thoughts grow out of some erroneous assumptions that Samuel made. 

First, Samuel was assuming God could use only the “obviously able,” who to human eyes looked the part for the assignment they were being called on to do. We ourselves might have similar thoughts: When faced with great need or great opportunity, we might think, “God can’t use me; I don’t have what it takes to do anything meaningful for God.” If God calls you to do something for him, it is a given that he will enable you to obey him.

God looks for people whose hearts are right, to whom he can entrust important things: “The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).

Second, Samuel believed God evaluates people and situations in the same way we humans do. The prophet needed to learn that God judges on the basis of realities man does not see and, indeed, cannot see. Like Samuel, we also might be tempted to make evaluations on the basis of that which we can see, such as a person’s outward appearance. God, however, examines people at heart-level.

Third, Samuel expected God would work in the same way every time. Israel’s first king had been a big and presumably a physically powerful man, and so Samuel assumed Saul’s replacement must possess the same qualities. Walking into the situation, it evidently never occurred to Samuel that instead of a heroic-looking he-man, the Lord’s anointed might be a scruffy sunburned kid with peach fuzz on his lip and a pimple on his nose! God also wants to break us out of the same old ways of looking at things and be willing to follow him into unfamiliar territory.

Through this passage, we also discover that sometimes God has to lead us through a process of clearing away cobwebs of misconception and misunderstanding, in order to prepare us for the revelation of his will. Think for a moment about the process by which God revealed his choice of a king to Samuel: God told the prophet his anointed would be one of the sons of Jesse, but did not tell him at first specifically which son it would be.

That initial ambiguity of God’s instruction placed Samuel in an interesting position because perhaps for the first time in his prophetic career (and certainly the first described in Scripture), we see Samuel at a loss for clear revelation of God’s will. He would go to Bethlehem and to the home of Jesse, as instructed; but from that point, he would have to go on his own intuitions, and permit God to correct the course of his thoughts as needed. Once Samuel arrived in Bethlehem, God then told him what he needed to hear in order to re-orient his thinking along the divine lines.

This powerful prophet, advanced in years though he was, still had some things to learn about the ways of God; and through this process God was taking him to the schoolroom to teach him those lessons.

Like Samuel, we need to keep our hearts and minds open to learn new lessons from God about how he wishes to work in our lives. It is this continual process of thought-transformation that Paul wrote about in Romans 12:2: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”