When God Sees What We Cannot
“But the Lord said unto Samuel, 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 (KJV)
Creating Hope in the Journey has been a big learning experience. The only thing I knew about blogging was reading other people’s. I had no clue what it took to publish one. Through many trials and a lot of errors—and a lot of prayer—it became what I dreamed it might be. But one issue continued to bother me. Not with writing the posts—but with their appearance. While the blog’s featured images appeared clear in the different announcements—on the blog website, the color and beauty of the image was hidden behind a dark overlay. This disturbed me. After struggling through multiple setting and spending parts of several days searching for an answer, I finally discovered how to remove the dark film that distorted the images. As soon as I changed the setting—all twenty-three images on published blogs presented the images exactly the way I had created them.
This was very important to me—I already felt like an amateur blogger. After all, I’ve only been writing blog posts for six months. I wanted the blog to look “professional”—not “homemade”. I did not want a reader to be distracted by a dark film covering an otherwise beautiful image. As I thought about what had just occurred, I remembered another dark overlay from my past—one that had covered the value of something I created and whispered, “It’s homemade. It has little value.”
When my daughter, Lisa, was young, I made most of her clothes. We did not always have enough money to buy her clothes and although I loved creating pretty outfits for her, part of me still felt less than as a mother having them handmade. I remember when I was young my mother had most of my clothes made by her friend. Although there was nothing wrong with them, I wished we could shop at the nice boutiques like other girls did. That feeling spilled over into sewing for my daughter. I imagined she shared my old feeling of wishing her outfits came from nice dress shops rather than Mom’s homemade offerings. That old whisper— “You are not good enough”—kept me from seeing the true value of what I had created. A dark filter covered the value of the outfits I created.
During her junior year, she wanted a Homecoming Mum. Money was a little tight so we bought a big white mum at Michaels and then a lot of trinkets, bells, and a small stuffed bear, that added so much weight, that when she pinned it on her sweater vest, the heaviness of the mum caused it to pull it down her shoulder.
The next year she asked for another Homecoming Mum. I was doing better financially and told her to order one—money was no object! As Homecoming quickly approached, I asked if she had ordered the mum. She had not. Her next statement floored me.
“I don’t want to buy one—I want you to make it for me.”
I said, “You want my homemade mum?”
Then the dark film quickly dissolved when she stated:
“Oh Mom, I always loved your homemade things! Especially the clothes—they were beautiful originals!”
I suddenly saw my sewing through Lisa’s eyes rather than the dark filter I was using.
Lisa’s words dissolved the dark film that had kept me from seeing the true value of what I had created. But not every loving voice immediately changes the way we see ourselves. Sometimes someone sees what God has placed within us long before we are able to recognize it ourselves. My mother saw something in me that I would not discover until I was thirty years old.
In school, I did just enough to get by. I remember my mother looking at my report cards—filled with mostly Cs. She would shake her head and say, “Gwinnetta, you are so smart”.
I didn’t believe her. The grades she held in her hands seemed to prove otherwise. But my mother saw beyond those mediocre grades to an ability and potential I could not yet see. It would be many years before I discovered that she had been right all along.
My mother saw beyond the evidence in her hands to something within me that I could not yet see. God sees us even more clearly. We may judge ourselves by our present failures, fears, or circumstances, but God sees what He placed within us—and what we can become when our lives are placed in His hands.
Gideon had his own dark overlay. When God called him a “mighty man of valour,” Gideon could see only his circumstances and limitations. His family was the poorest in Manasseh, and he considered himself the least in his father’s house. Even when he obeyed God’s command to tear down his father’s altar to Baal, he did it at night because he was afraid.
Gideon saw someone small, fearful, and incapable of leading Israel. But God was not limited by Gideon’s view of himself. He saw what Gideon could become when such limitations are placed within in God’s hands.
The overlay only showed Gideon his weakness. God saw always the warrior.
But dark overlays do not affect only the way we see ourselves. They can also affect the way we see other people. We may look at someone’s appearance, clothing, past, behavior, reputation, disability, or present circumstances and decide we know who that person is. We see the outward evidence and form a judgment, never knowing the battles they are fighting, the wounds they are carrying, the burdens they are bearing, or the story behind their actions.
That does not mean we ignore harmful behavior or abandon wisdom and discernment. It means we remember that our vision is limited. We see a moment, an appearance, or a mistake. Only God sees the heart—and only God knows what He is still creating within that life.
Perhaps the person we have labeled “damaged” is someone God sees as wounded. Perhaps the person we consider a failure is still under construction. Perhaps, like Gideon, the least likely person in the room is the very one God intends to use.
Only God sees beyond every overlay.
Wounds, shame, fear, failure, rejection, age, disability, and discouragement can all become dark lenses through which we see ourselves. But the overlay changes only the image we see—not the person God created.
Many of us grew up believing we had to become “good enough” for God. But that is a burden He never intended us to carry. None of us could achieve absolute perfection, that is why we needed a Savior. Our acceptance before God has never depended upon our excellence; it depends upon Christ’s.
Even after accepting that truth about salvation, however, I continued to hear the old whisper: “You are not good enough.” It cast a dark film over the things I did, preventing me from seeing their true worth.
When I removed the dark overlay from those twenty-three blog images, I did not change a single photograph. Their color and beauty had been there all along. Removing the overlay simply allowed me to see what had previously been hidden.
Perhaps God wants to do something similar in us. The enemy wants us to continue looking through the darkness, but God invites us to look upon ourselves through His eyes. His sight goes beyond the labels we have accepted and the failures we remember. The masterpiece does not know when it is complete until the artist has made the last stroke. To us we may be a jumble of colors and shapes but to our Heavenly Father there is still a work of art in progress.
We see ourselves through the lens of yesterday. God sees us through the promise of tomorrow.
The transformation begins when we choose to believe what God says rather than what our darkened vision tells us. The overlay may distort what we see, but it can never change what God created—or prevent Him from completing the good work He has begun in us.
“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”
—Philippians 1:6 (KJV)
CLOSING BLESSING
May you allow God to remove every dark layer of shame, failure, and discouragement that has distorted the way you see yourself. May you begin to see through His eyes—and discover the value, purpose, and promise He has seen in you all along.
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