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How many times have we been told in school or as children, “It’s what’s inside that counts”? How often is this something we live out as true? Too often, we judge others based on how they look, and others judge us based on how we look.
How good it is to know that God sees differently! God doesn’t judge us based on how much our clothes cost, how good-looking we are, how tall or short we are. God sees us for who we are. On my worst bad hair days, I remember to be grateful for this!
More than that, God calls people to act based on what God sees, not what we see. Sometimes the person picked by God to do something is the last person we’d expect. David, a youngest son not expected to amount to much of anything, except maybe a shepherd, was chosen by God to be king of God’s chosen people.
And if all of that weren’t enough to show that appearances aren’t everything, David becomes part of Jesus’ lineage. Jesus, God in human form, the one who redeems the world, is born into the line of David.
This message is excerpted from “The appearance illusion” by Becca Ehrlich from the December 1, 2023, blog of the Women of the ELCA.