Surely he wasn’t worth inviting, or was he?

The father knew that the celebrity was coming to town and so he gathered his 7 oldest (out of his 8 sons) to meet the honoured guest.

What does that say about the father’s relationship with his youngest son, David?

David was at work. We don’t know if the father sent him there when he heard someone important was coming or if he just chose not to call him home. Another possibility is that David (who incidentally worked for his father) was just so good at his job that the father was reluctant to take him away from what he is doing.

Think about this from David’s perspective. You arrive home at the end of a long day and discover that you have missed out on someone who is really important and famous who had come to visit. David wasn’t considered worthy of being part of this great occasion.

Whichever way you look at this, there was something just not quite right about the relationship between the father and his youngest son.

All this happened three thousand years ago. Samuel the prophet who played a significant national role was coming to Jesse’s home town. Samuel was on a mission from God, he was there to anoint the next king of Israel and God had shown him that one of Jesse’s sons would be the next king.

All the town leaders were there as was Jesse and his oldest sons and if anyone noticed that David wasn’t there they weren’t saying anything. David was probably around the age of 12 and in his culture, he just wasn’t seen as being very important.

Samuel looked at Samuel’s oldest son and thought ‘surely he’s the one’, but God saw things differently.

“Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected
him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

After all the seven sons had been ruled out, Samuel asked if there was another. David was sent for and the rest is history as David became Israel’s greatest and most famous king.

The father didn’t think his youngest son was worthy
of calling.

Our heavenly father thought that this young boy was worthy of calling.

Samuel looked at a prime candidate for the job, but God said ‘err, no!’

God looked at his candidate for the job, but everyone else had excluded him from even being present.

Imagine if you were told that a 12 year old had been selected to become your next boss or perhaps your church leader. How would you feel? Yes, this story is really that shocking!

God is a God of surprises and I hope that we are willing to let him lead.

I hope that we don’t say ‘you can’t’ to God and I hope that when we say ‘no way’ that we quickly get over it and follow God’s ‘way’.

I hope we don’t exclude others based on what we think of them.

I hope we don’t exclude ourselves based on what we think of who we are.

We see things a certain way but God has the best perspective of all. The question for us is will we trust him?

You can read the full story of what happened in 1 Samuel 16.