The Lord Looketh on the Heart

One of the most famous verses in the Old Testament is this statement from the Lord to the prophet Samuel when he was searching for the next king: “Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).  This led Samuel to choose David as the Lord’s anointed, even though his brothers were bigger and stronger and from the outward appearance looked much more like kings.  David didn’t have great physical strength but he had a faith in the Lord that gave him the power to defeat a lion, a bear, and then Goliath (1 Samuel 17:36).  The strong men of Israel didn’t have the nerve or strength to face Goliath, but David did because, as he said to Goliath, “I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel” (1 Samuel 17:45).

              I have been thinking about this story after a couple of things that have happened the past day with my six-year-old.  She is in first grade and is really struggling with school.  She has a hard time focusing and is getting behind in a lot of areas, especially in math.  We work a lot together at home on homework and yet she still has trouble keeping up and focusing in her class.  She brought home a math test yesterday that again showed she was having trouble getting any of the concepts.  My wife and I feel a lot of pressure from her teachers to perform better and worry that they perceive her now as a student who is slow or can’t perform well.  I went to bed a little discouraged about the whole situation, and was awakened by her around 2:00 in the morning because she had had a bad dream.  I went in to her room to comfort her and she immediately jumped down onto her knees and started pleading—and I mean pleading—with her Heavenly Father that He would take away the bad dreams from her.  She kept saying, “I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe” to Him, telling Him that she truly believed that He could take away her bad dreams and asking Him that He would do it.  I was amazed at her simple faith in her Father in Heaven and her immediate impulse to turn to Him without even my prodding.  As I’ve thought about this today I realize that I’ll take faith over knowledge—if I have to choose between her having the worldly knowledge offered in public education or having the faith in God necessary to receive help from her Father in Heaven, I’ll pick the latter any day.  I think I saw in the middle of the night a glimpse of her heart and how the Lord really sees her.  God doesn’t judge us by our test scores or compare us to others to see how we measure up academically—like He did with David, He looks on our heart.  And that’s how I need to learn to start seeing my own children.