This Is My Heart | revelife

Friday, 24 February 2012

This Is My Heart
“....People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” - 1 Samuel 16:7

When the Lord finds Samuel still morning for Saul, he tells Samuel he has chosen someone to be king -- one of the sons of Jesse from Bethlehem. Samuel obeys the Lord and meets with Jesse and his sons.

Upon seeing Eliab he thinks to himself "this is the guy, he looks like a king!" And God replies: “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.”

I love that God finds Samuel. I can't imagine the sadness in Samuel's heart over Saul, but I'm sure that, when God told him about the new king, Samuel remembered how God described the new king earlier; "a man after his own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14).

We want people to see what we think our hearts should look like -- that's how we present ourselves. We guard our hearts at all cost. The "reasons" are the keys to the many locks we use to protect who we really think we are.

When someone spends a lot of time with us, we learn to trust them, and we might remove one or two locks. They may do the same. We don't have to work so hard on presenting to them what we think our hearts should look like; we can be ourselves, we can open up.

Revealing your heart to another is one of the most beautiful unseen acts the heart can make. You take the most precious thing you have, the one thing you can't actually hold and you place it near another heart -- just beautiful. The saddest thing is to have that heart broken. You find yourself in an inconsolable state, one which seems never ending. For some weird and foreign reason, those songs you hated start to make sense!

So much care goes into our outsides, and very little seems to go into the one thing the Lord is actually looking at. I know we forget what the Lord looks at and what others see becomes so important -- not as important as what they think about us when they look at us. It is so true.

If we did spend less time on the outside -- cared less what others think of it -- a whole new world would open up. Our eyes would be able to see people as they really are: hearts. You can tell so much about someone if you just spend enough time with their hearts -- look, listen, love, share. Our walk with God should be very different knowing what He is actually looking at, and our walk with others should change because of what we now see in them.

When my uncle was a child, His dad was serving in the second world war. His mother would always show him a picture and say, "You see John, that is your dad!" My grandfather was deployed for a long time in the service, and for a child, that is even longer. When he finally came home John's mother said, "Daddy is home!" My grandfather embraced his wife, and when he went to embrace his son, Johnny ran to his room and came back with the picture, and said "This is my dad!"

We are not so different. We live our lives telling people, "This is my heart" and showing them a picture.

In what ways can we be more authentic and genuine with those we are in fellowship with? How can we be more comfortable revealing our hearts in the relationships that matter? How can we see people more as God sees them, for their hearts and not for their outward appearances?