Saturday, May 14, 2016

Day 126: Seeing into the Heart

But the Lord said to Samuel, "Have no regard for his outward appearance, nor for the maturity of his stature, because I have refused him.  For man does not see as God sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord sees into the heart."  1 Samuel 16:7
Imagine how great it would be to have the power to look into someone's heart as opposed to the outward appearance.  We would accomplish so much more as a society.  No more race.  No more gender.  No more discrimination.  Just the purity of one's heart is all we'd need for everything.

But that's not the world we live in, unfortunately.  We live in a world where the first thing we see is color.  If that color is different from our own, that person is all of a sudden the 'other'.  We will treat that person differently, I'm sure usually negatively.  That other doesn't know what I do or what I've been through.  That other is going to mess things up that I and my people have accomplished.

This is where we need to take on God's example: impartiality.  We need to start looking at the heart of our neighbors rather than their outward appearance.  It's difficult, but how do we even start?  The people who are around you probably have eyes, a mouth, a body, skin, hair, and many other features that you probably already have.  So, after getting through those similarities, wouldn't you think that there would be a heart in there somewhere?  A soul?  A being with feelings and thoughts?

Go to Jesus' command.  Show your neighbor love.  God can see into our hearts because God is all seeing.  But, at the same time, we can see into other people's hearts just by acting in love.  We will start to see what we want.  We will be the gateway into communicating straight to the heart as opposed to the social construct that we have grown used to.  Just as God can look at us and see God's image, we can see ourselves in our neighbors.  When we see that way, we can start to see into the heart.

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