The Lord Looketh on the Heart

How do you choose a king?

The prophet Samuel thought the whole thing was a terrible idea. He thought that God was Israel’s true king and that by asking for a mortal king, they were rejecting Him. But God instructed him to “hearken unto the voice of the people” (1 Samuel 8:7), which is ironically the same phrase King Mosiah would later use to abolish the Nephite monarchy (Mosiah 29:25-29).

So Samuel got to work searching for a man who could be trusted as the single leader of God’s people.

God led him to Saul, who certainly looked the part (1 Samuel 10:23-24) and whose self-consciousness suggested an admirable humility (1 Samuel 9:21; 10:21-22). Furthermore, after he was called by Samuel, “God gave him another heart,” and he was filled with the Spirit of God and prophesied (1 Samuel 10:9-10). Certainly a promising start!

But Saul’s self-consciousness proved to be his downfall in the end. Instead of trusting God and submitting his will to God’s will, Saul feared the people he led and tried to appease them. When Samuel was slow arriving for a religious ceremony, Saul performed the ceremony himself, later explaining, “I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that thou camest not within the days appointed, … I forced myself therefore, and offered a burnt offering” (1 Samuel 13:11-12). When he saved animals alive that were supposed to be slaughtered, he said, “The people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God” (1 Samuel 15:15). Saul was the consummate politician: constantly trying to appease his constituents and therefore failing to lead with integrity.

So Samuel anointed a new king: a young shepherd named David. The Lord revealed to Samuel that the new king would come from the house of Jesse, but as Samuel looked at Jesse’s oldest son, the Lord cautioned him:

Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.

1 Samuel 16:7

It was the youngest son, not the oldest, whom God had chosen. It would be many years before David would reign as king, but as Samuel anointed him with oil, “the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward” (1 Samuel 16:13).

This week as we study 1 Samuel 8-16, let’s focus on the role of the heart in leadership. Let’s learn how we can be more effective leaders as we consider Samuel’s efforts to find a suitable leader for Israel.