God Looks at the Heart

Choosing Teams

Have you ever been in the playground or on a sports field when people are choosing their team to play a game? The captains look at all the people there and decide who they will pick first. Sometimes it might be their friends. Maybe they will pick the people who can play the game really well because they just want to win.

At first, picking people is easy, but by the time nearly everyone has been chosen, it sometimes gets hard. There might be two people and you want to choose them both, but there's only one spot left on your team. Or maybe there are some people you don't want to pick, but you have to pick one.

Choosing can be hard to do, and it's no fun for the people who aren't chosen either.

Samuel's Search for a New King

In the Old Testament story today, we read about the prophet Samuel. A prophet is a person who listens to what God says and then tells other people what God wants them to know.

Well, God told Samuel it was time to choose a new king because the king who was there had stopped doing what God said needed to be done. Samuel did listen to God, and so he went to Bethlehem to meet Jesse, the father of God's new choice, and to have a meal with the family.

As the boys came in, Samuel noticed that the oldest was tall and handsome. He thought, "This must be the one God has chosen." But no, it wasn't. And God told Samuel this:

Don't just look at the outside of people and how they appear. I look at people's hearts — how they live and how they treat other people. Keep looking.

So the second son was brought in, and then the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh — and still God said no.

The Unexpected Choice

Samuel was a bit puzzled. "Is this everyone?" Jesse admitted that there was one more — the youngest, David — who was out looking after the sheep and hadn't been included.

I wonder what Jesse thought when Samuel said that this son was to be brought, and no one would sit down or eat until he arrived. They all had to wait.

When David arrived, God told Samuel that here was the new king. "He is my choice." This wasn't what anyone was expecting. But God often makes choices that we don't expect.

Chosen by God

Sometimes we don't understand why God chooses us, but God looks into our hearts and knows that even though we sometimes make mistakes, we want to love other people just like God does — and that is okay with God.