SURPRISE

1 Samuel 16: 1 – 7

I loved the movie Planet of the Apes. Not the remake with Marky Mark, but the original with Charlton Heston. Of course one of my favorite scenes, and favorite quotes, was when Heston's character yelled; “Keep your filthy hands off me, you damned dirty ape”.
The reactions of the apes in the scene were priceless. They had never seen a human that could talk. They couldn't believe their eyes or ears.
We have all had those moments in our lives that were similar, something so surprising we are stunned, it just wasn't expected, we didn't see it coming, or any other epithet that can be thought of.
The Bible is filled with such things. One of which was the story of David.
David was the second king of Israel. Compared to Saul, David was nothing. The Bible tells us that Saul was the tallest man in Israel, David one of the shortest, Saul was handsome, David not so much. Yet David was the king that God sent Samuel to find.

7 But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

How many times are we taken in by outward appearances? Don't we have the tendency to believe the good looking people rather than the homely? Aren't we surprised when we see a strong body builder type, turn tail and run when confronted with the slightest danger? Yet when a small not so handsome guy goes charging to the front, when somebody stays at your side when you most need it, we are taken aback.
Why?
Why do we continue to look at the outside, why aren't we learning the lessons we are taught in the Bible?
Martin Luther King said it best when he said that he looked forward to the day when a man was not judged by the color of his skin, but by his character, and I agree. We need to look deeper into the person and not just go with the shallow, cursory looks we give most folks.

If we judge others only by their outer appearance, we might miss the wonderful surprise of what’s in their heart.