From the Outside, Looking in...

"...for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." I Samuel 16:7

Good morning, dear friends!

My daughter was saying the other day that she could never write a blog, because she could never find good ideas of things to write about.  I told her, that many times I don't have to look for things to write about, they find me.  I would be going about my routine, and look up and see something and my mind would start to make connections.

She replied, "So, it's a good thing when your mind wanders off..."

Um, yes.  Sometimes, it is a good thing....

One of the aspects I love about living here in France is that so many of the buildings from time gone by, have the same exterieurs now as they did when they were built.  We have seen in town an entire building demolished except for the façade--which was an historical landmark--only to have the new building constructed behind it.  The French are very insistent to protect as much as possible what is old, even when something takes a new purpose.

Yesterday as we were walking with my son to school, we ventured past a demolition site, where an abandoned factory in our village is being torn down for new housing.  I looked up, and my eyes caught the scene from the picture at the top of the blog.  

On the left of the building you can still see the aluminum siding that had not yet been removed, which is all I had ever seen of the building before.  I thought it was just another industrial building that had been built for that purpose.  On the right of the picture, as they had stripped off the siding, was the original façade of the factory:  in writing you can see "pâtes alimentaires" and the name of the company.

Just under the metallic exterieur of this structure, was a brick monument to a much earlier time in the company's history.  It was a surprise to me to see what looked like a building at least a hundred years old. 

Looking from the outside, you would have never guessed what lay just under the surface...

So much of our lives are like that building.  People that know me now, only see the "me" that I am now.  The "outside" that is so prominently on display now is so different from the one I wore some 30 years ago, when the Lord found me and gave my life a permanent "make over."  I became His child, and the "old me" got swallowed up in the "new me."

That doesn't mean that the "old me" isn't still there, just under the surface, waiting to rear up its ugly head from time to time.  Oh, how it wants to come to the surface.  In an impatient attitude toward my family.  In a lazy attitude toward my responsabilities.  In an unkind word spoken in response to an unkind word.  In times of anger.  In times of  frustration.  In times of discouragement.

The verse at the top of this blog has always been an encouragement to me, knowing that God does not judge man from what He sees on the outside.  It has always whispered to me that no matter what kind of image I project to others, God knows the real me, and He loves me just the same:

"...for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." I Samuel 16:7

May these words encourage us today to look past what we see on the outside of others today, and have a heart for what's happening on the inside.  All of us who know the Lord struggle with our "old me", and may God help us to be praying for our family in Christ all around us.  

For others that we may meet, who have yet to come to Christ, may the Lord help us to pray faithfully for their "old me" to be swallowed up in a "new me."