“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 Samuel 16:7b NIV

A mother and daughter were riding along in the car when the daughter asked, “Mommy, what part of me do you love the best?”
“Oh baby, that’s an easy question! I love your heart the best”, the mother answered. “I hope it never changes.”

“Hmm”, said the daughter, and sat there with a puzzled look on her little face.

A day or two passed, when the daughter asked, “Mommy, what part of me do you love second best?”

“Well, sweetie”, the mother said, “That’s another easy question! I love your wonderful spirit! I hope it never changes either!”

She sighed, with a look of perplexity on her face.

After a couple more days, the daughter then asked, “Mommy, what part of me do you love third?”

The mother answered, “I’d have to say, your personality. I love your personality third. It’s one of the happiest personalities I’ve ever seen and I expect that it’ll never change!”

Finally, the little daughter asked, with some bewilderment in her expression, “Mommy, don’t you love any parts of me that you can see?”

What the mother had noticed, in all of those instances, was that her daughter had styled her own hair and put on several different flattering outfits, in an attempt to get her mother to focus on how beautiful she looked on the outside.

How often do we do the same thing? We dress ourselves up so that everything looks good on the outside in order for others to value us from that point of view.

But God doesn’t do that. He judges the value of people by what’s in their hearts. In today’s Dose verse, Samuel didn’t expect that God would choose David to succeed Saul as King. David was good looking but he was a smaller, young, man. (1 Samuel 16:11-12) Saul was tall, handsome, and towered over the heads and shoulders of other men. (1 Samuel 9:2) He had all of the outward looks of a leader. But God looks at the heart!

God loves all of our parts, the seen and the unseen; but he values godly hearts! That mother saw her daughter from the inside out. God sees us that way all of the time but we don’t see others or ourselves that way naturally.

When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, we receive the Holy Spirit, which allows us to view others and ourselves from the inside out instead of through outward appearances.

How are you viewing yourself and others today?

By grace through faith,

Rita