“I am taller than he is!”
“I wish my hair were curly.”
“I want to be the fastest!”
Do you ever hear things like that at your house? At my house, it seems we often need to remind our children…
“The things that are most important to God are the things that should be most important to us.”
Even a little time in God’s Word quickly reveals the things that are most important to Him… and it isn’t who is fastest or strongest or has the best hair.
Don’t you just love the moment when Samuel goes to anoint the next king of Israel? Samuel thinks tall and handsome Eliab must surely be the one. “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stare, because I have rejected him…
For the LORD sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”
One by one Jesse’s sons are passed over. “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” “The LORD has not chosen these.” Then little David comes in from keeping the sheep. “Arise, anoint him, for this is he!” Wooo hooo! I love it! “Then Samuel tooK the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers.”
When we were reading through 1 Samuel this year, we took time to talk about why David was chosen over his brothers and what would have made him a good king. We took time to discuss the things about us that are most important to God. We know that a God who knit us together and knows every hair on our heads must care about all parts of us… the outside and the inside, the physical and the heart. We know, however, which things God speaks most about in His Word and which things matter most to Him.
This simple activity helped us to remember!
We decorated stick figures to represent our “outward appearance.”
You can click this image to print. 🙂
Then we cut them out and traced around them on a second page with the Bible verse.
We wrote on our “hearts” the things that God sees and stapled the two pieces together.
Now this mama just needs to learn and remember this lesson regarding herself!
It’s a hard one, isn’t it?
i have no greater joy 
Yikes! In some ways this verse is super comforting. And in other ways it’s not. Like on Sunday when people at Church are pouring out praise for how nicely our boys behaved in the service but they have no idea how irritated and impatient my heart had been with them all that morning. Sure, people were seeing a great Mom on the outside, but the Lord was looking straight through to my heart. Thank you, Jesus for your grace and mercy!
Oooohhh… you are so right, and I hadn’t even thought about that one. Yikes. I was thinking along the lines of “I shouldn’t care so much about this 15 # I’d like to lose because that really isn’t that important to Jesus.” By the way, I have been wondering how you sing in the choir! Do you go back to the pew between songs? Just wondering how Tom could keep all of the boys while you sing?!
You are so funny! Our choir doesn’t sing from the stage. We actually occupy a few side pews in the congregation so our family always sits next to the choir which makes it easy for me to go back and forth. Also, Tom does great with all the boys during the service with or without me. And the boys to their credit do a good job sitting quietly for the one hour a week we require them to do so. Won’t it be fun to be worshipping all together some day? I can’t wait!
Love this! Perfect timing for us too! Thanks for sharing!
Oh good! Hope it works for you!
This is a hard one!! I think I struggle with it more than my kiddos. Maybe I need to make one too 😉
Oh girl, I know! 😦 Me too!
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