Do You Look at Someone’s Heart?

Due to lack of sleep from stress, injury and pain on the body, my hair and skin are looking worse for wear. My bones feel like they creak when I move and sad to say there is no bounce in my step. Some of my granddaughters often cheekily and full of love, with a twinkle in their eye, talk to me or ask me questions and refer to me as their “old Grammie.”

We have this fun relationship where they say, “Let me help you seeing that you are so old.” This is not said in a derogatory way but full of love and respect. We laugh all the time about it. Especially when I don’t understand some of the words they use in the English language. My mind questions even if that is a word? If ever they have texted me how they are or what they have been doing, I need them to interpret their answers for me.

I have this habit or quirkiness where I say the wrong sayings like, instead of saying, “the pot calls the kettle black” – I’ll say, “the pot calls the kettle charcoal.” And I don’t even know that I am saying them wrong.

 The grandchildren, actually even my children, laugh at me about it.

Well, the other day Willow seemed to take after me. You know the saying never judge a person by their colour. This saying has been abbreviated from one famous quote from Martin Luther King Jnr. “Judge a man not by the colour of his skin, but by the content of his character. “

Have you heard the saying “never judge a book by its cover”? Well, Willow said “never judge a person by their cover.”

When her Mum asked her “what is a person’s cover?” Willow said, “it’s what the person looks like, not a cover of a magazine.”

Such wisdom in these words. Just like Jesse the prophet in the Book of Samuel in the Old Testament sharing God’s mind on who He chose to be the next King of Israel.

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.’

1 Samuel 16:7 NRSV

And in 1 Peter it says that your beauty should not come from outward adornments but rather:

… let your adornment be the inner self with the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in God’s sight.

1 Peter 3:4 NRSV

As I reflect upon this interchange of words and wisdom, the Spirit of God within me questions me upon how do I judge people? Don’t judge people by their outward appearance, look at their heart.

Do you judge even before knowing the person?

May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’

Love

Rosemary

Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

How easily do you judge someone before knowing them?

What can you do to look to someone’s heart?

Would you say that your inner self is adorned with beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit? What does that mean to you?