Lent@Landmark: Day 17

Israel means “struggles with God.” It was given to Jacob after his wrestling match with God, but no one would argue—it became a fitting name for God’s chosen people.

Perhaps the greatest challenge Israel had was on fullest display when they demanded that God give them a king like other nations had, rather than the judges that had been leading them since the time of Moses. God wanted them to be different, but they just didn’t want to see what God saw. Eventually, God relented and gave them a king, Saul, who failed them.

The time then came to pick a new king, and so God sent Samuel, the last judge of Israel, to the house of Jesse, because his son would be the next king.

Samuel looks at his oldest son, and thinks he’s got a winner.

When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, "Surely the Lord's anointed is now before the LORD."

But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." (1Samuel 16:6-7)

Our eyes are miraculous, complex gifts to us that allow us to see. It takes more than just having eyes, however, to know where to look.