The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas (11 page)

People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.

1 SAMUEL 16:7

The LORD said to Samuel . . . “Find a man named Jesse who lives there, for I have selected one of his sons to be my king. . . .

“Take a heifer with you,” the LORD replied, “and say that you have come to make a sacrifice to the LORD. Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you which of his sons to anoint for me.”

So Samuel did as the LORD instructed. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town came trembling to meet him. “What’s wrong?” they asked. “Do you come in peace?”

“Yes,” Samuel replied. “I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.” . . .

When they arrived, Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, “Surely this is the LORD’s anointed!”

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

Then Jesse told his son Abinadab to step forward and walk in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, “This is not the one the LORD has chosen.” Next Jesse
summoned Shimea, but Samuel said, “Neither is this the one the LORD has chosen.” In the same way all seven of Jesse’s sons were presented to Samuel. But Samuel said to Jesse, “The LORD has not chosen any of these.” Then Samuel asked, “Are these all the sons you have?”

“There is still the youngest,” Jesse replied. “But he’s out in the fields watching the sheep and goats.”

“Send for him at once,” Samuel said. “We will not sit down to eat until he arrives.”

So Jesse sent for him. He was dark and handsome, with beautiful eyes.

And the LORD said, “This is the one; anoint him.”

1 SAMUEL 16:1-12

Advent reflects.

Candles flicker in windows, and you can see flamed light multiplied across dark. You can see your own face reflected in windowpanes, in a world of pain.

You can see it, too, how the world keeps looking for beauty in appearances rather than in His appearing.

Advent is this baptism of eyes.

Like a clear washing of eyes.

God tells Samuel that He has looked and He has found, provided for Himself a king. In Hebrew, God’s literal words are “I’ve seen me a King.”

“Looking comes first,” is what C. S. Lewis writes in
The Great Divorce
.
[17]
Looking comes first if you’re ever to find the life you want, if you are ever to “see you a king.” Always, always —first the eyes. Joy is a function of gratitude, and gratitude is a function of perspective. You only begin to change your life when you begin to change the way you see.

Samuel —he sees the stature of Eliab and mutters, “Surely!” Surely this is the man in whom God’s seen Him a king.

But the Lord draws near to Samuel: “The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

It’s not just Samuel. It’s us. It’s the whole of humanity
who live fixated on facades, blinded to the realest real. The shiny shell of things can bind you and blind you. It’s a veiled God who elevates the veiled things: the heart, the interior, the soul. And it’s a temporal world that elevates the foil and the plastic, the status and the skills, the physical and the tangible —all this concrete mirage. Humanity obsesses with vapors, not eternity.

The reality is, you can lose your life, your joy if you are beguiled by the world’s rind and blind to its inner reality. The endless bombardment of ads, gloss, Photoshop —it’s like full-immersion sight lessons, schooling us to have eyes for everything unimportant and unreal. From Hollywood to Pinterest, the media of this world aggressively schools your soul to see the exact opposite of the way God sees.

People aren’t bodies; they are hearts. We could train our eyes to turn everything inside out.

“Why should the eye be so lazy? Let us exercise the eye until it learns to see,” writes G. K. Chesterton.
[18]
Let us exercise the eye until it sees through the fat of things, down to the eternal of things. Let us exercise the eye by walking with Christ.

There is this call for every Christian to answer His calling to be an ocular surgeon. Our seeing must cut through surfaces and down to souls.

You could close your eyes and ask it, see it. . . .

Is my life about the heart of things? Is my Christmas?

Am I deeply absorbed in Him and the heart of things? Or is my life a shallow absorption with surfaces?

It’s strange how it affects us —from housekeeping to soul-keeping: if it’s mostly the surfaces that absorb us, then we’re mostly superficial. When my priorities aren’t the things seen —when my priorities are rather all things unseen —it’s only then that my life begins to have substance and weight.

Your God never stops turning things inside out, seeking all things unseen, reversing the ways of the world. God never stops looking on the heart. God never stops looking for the world’s seconds, the unseen unimportant, and calls them the important firsts. Which means He raises Abel instead of Cain, Jacob instead of Esau, Isaac instead of Ishmael, Moses instead of Aaron, David instead of Eliab.

Which means He raises the unseen and forgotten: Sarah instead of Hagar, Leah instead of Rachel, Tamar, Hannah, Ruth, Rahab.

Which means that long after that unseen and forgotten son of Jesse was anointed king in Bethlehem, there was another unseen and unimportant One born in Bethlehem —One who was left out with the sheep because no one made room for Him either.

He who was the most beautiful One became the most ugly . . . that our ugly hearts might become beautiful in the eyes of God. Who knows of another love story like this?

The world —it seems different these few weeks of Advent. It
sees
different.

Each day of this Advent, we enter deeper into the story of Christ . . . and enter deeper into Him. And it’s Him who gives us His eyes to really see.

To see past surfaces, to the heart of things —all the way down to the love.

Candles flicker in the window, reflected flames.

There is another forgotten One from Bethlehem —One who was not allowed in, who was kept out with the sheep and the animals. There was another who was anointed by the Spirit and sent out into the wilderness, not just hunted by Saul, but assaulted by Satan. There was another who was not just forgotten by his father, but forsaken by His Father. The most brilliant, beautiful Person in the universe lost his physical attraction (Isaiah 53) so that we, being spiritually unsightly, could be beautiful in the eyes of God.

Seek out one person today who from the outside doesn’t look like one of your friends. Take a few moments to sit down with that person and ask how his or her day is going. Look on the inside and lovingly listen to the heart.

O God and Father, I repent of my sinful preoccupation with visible things. The world has been too much with me. Thou hast been here and I knew it not. I have been blind to Thy presence. Open my eyes that I may behold Thee in and around me. For Christ’s sake, Amen.

A. W. TOZER

When you look at other people today, how can you concentrate on seeing hearts, not appearances?

What do you want to see with fresh eyes this Christmas?

Ask God to help your life be about the heart of things.

The people who walk in darkness will see a great light.

ISAIAH 9:2