Photo and Commentary ©2023 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, August 6, 2023
Appearances can be deceiving. What sprang to mind when you read those four words?
Even though I know what I’m planning to say here, when I typed those four words my mind immediately went in a different direction – I thought of how sometimes I’m fooled by food that looks enticing but ends up tasting bland. I place a high value on healthy food, but I place an equally high value on flavor!
Most often when we talk about how appearances can be deceiving, we’re focusing on people, and how easy it is to inaccurately judge someone by how they look. How we look at them has a lot to do with how they look! One of the Bible stories that illuminates how God does His looking is located in 1 Samuel 16:1-13.
God has sent Samuel to anoint a king to replace Saul, who has disqualified himself for service, and the selection process begins like this:
When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed stands here before the LORD.”
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 people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (I Samuel 16: 6-7 NIV)
It’s not so simple for us easily swayed humans to look at someone’s heart, but I think the Holy Spirit will gladly answer our prayers for that kind of eyesight, or insight.
What does this have to do with my photo above? It’s a bit deceitful. Perhaps a milder way of describing it is that it’s misleading.
What you see in the photo is what I saw the day I took the photo; I haven’t altered the photo since. I was captivated by the beauty in front of me and had to capture it with my camera. But I was very selective in how I captured it. I focused in so that you do not see the light pole to the right or the roof to the left. I didn’t want any man-made objects to mar my scene.
Between our neighbors’ flower garden in the foreground and the trees mid-photo runs a busy street. Another street runs perpendicular to that, and there is a cul-de-sac of houses behind me. Traffic and dog-walkers abound. But I wanted to see only peace, beauty, serenity, and God’s creation, so I selected a scene that ignored everything that would interfere with that picture.
I enjoy looking at my photo; to me, it’s a hint of heaven, and we need all the heaven hints we can get. But it also makes me smile to think that there’s a busy street hidden in the middle of my photo.
Sometimes I need to be just as selective in other ways, and I’m sure you can relate. When the pandemic first wrapped itself around the globe, my husband and I listened to all the news, read all we could find online from what we considered credible sources. As I often muttered to myself, and to others who would listen, “After all, this is my first pandemic.”
But after a while we wearied; it was too much. To protect our mental health we had to scale back and be more selective in our news consumption. Not to ignore reality, but to better deal with it.
People in all their diversity fascinate me. The older I get the more I see how our varied personalities affect how we handle the world we inherited. I was born to brood, and have realized in recent years how important it is for me to fight my melancholy nature – both for my happiness and the happiness of those who spend time in my presence.
In Ephesians 6 God outlines the spiritual armor He gives us for all our earthly battles, “the full armor of God”: truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, salvation, the word of God, and prayer.
What a great and generous gift! When we accept it, and let God suit us up each day, we can walk through its hours with confidence and serenity. We won’t ignore the reality of our situations, but instead ask God to help us look at them the way He looks at them, as we keep our eyes firmly focused on Him.
As we step into this brand-new week, may you know the joy of wearing God’s full armor and seeing things His way.