1 Samuel 16:1–13 John 9:1–41
The God Who Sees Differently
There is a particular kind of grief that settles in when something believed to have been given by God seems to go wrong. It is not merely disappointment, nor is it nostalgia. It is the sorrow of watching hope unravel…of seeing a life, a ministry, a leader, a prayer prayed fervently and expectantly, or even a season that once seemed full of God’s favour slowly hollowed out by circumstance, by disobedience, fear, or pride. That kind of grief lingers. It does not pass quickly, because it is bound up with love for God’s work and concern for his people.
At the time, that kind of disappointment rarely feels spiritual, does it? It feels confusing, bewildering, frustrating, sometimes even unfair. Only later…often much later, if ever…do we begin to see that the closed door was not the end of God’s involvement, but the beginning of a different kind of leading. A path we would never have chosen for ourselves. A future we could not yet imagine.
1 Samuel 16 speaks to people who live with that kind of disappointment.
Samuel had been certain about Saul. Everyone had. Saul looked right. He fit the role. He seemed, at least initially, to be God’s answer to Israel’s predicament. But now Samuel was left grieving…not only for the failure of a king, but the collapse of a hope. What was meant to be God’s provision had become a spiritual disaster.
And it is into that grief…into that sense of ‘this should have worked’…that God spoke. Not with an explanation, but with a command: “Fill your horn with oil and go.” In other words, trust me again, even though your last confidence ended in disappointment.
That is the space this text inhabits: the space between a door that has closed and a future God has not yet revealed.
That is precisely where we find Samuel at the opening of 1 Samuel 16. Saul had not simply failed as a king; he had failed as a servant of the Lord. What began with such promise ended in rejection. And Samuel was mourning. He grieved over a spiritual disaster…over the collapse of a man once anointed by God, over the danger now facing Israel, over what might have been had Saul just obeyed rather than hesitated and fluctuated.
And if we are honest, we may recognize ourselves in Samuel’s grief. We live surrounded by spiritual ruin that ought to trouble us more than it does. Leaders fall. Churches fracture and churches fold. Faith erodes quietly under pressure and compromise. Yet we often choose to move on without really mourning…we choose to distract ourselves rather than sit with sorrow over the condition of God’s people.
But Samuel mourned, and God let him mourn…but not forever. Because grief, however real, is not the final word in God’s economy.
“How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel?” The question was not harsh. It was not impatient. It was a summons forward. Note that God did not tell Samuel that his sorrow was misplaced; he told him that it was no longer sufficient. Mourning had to give way to obedience.
“Fill your horn with oil and go; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem.”
That sentence is hope wrapped in command. God was not stuck with Saul. His purposes had not been derailed. You see, even in the aftermath of failure…especially in the aftermath of failure…God was already preparing a new beginning. What Samuel could not yet see, God had already chosen.
That matters deeply for us. The collapse of a leader, the disappointment of a season, or the exposure of sin does not leave God scrambling for alternatives. He is never reduced to damage control. The Lord who judges also provides, and his provision often arrives while we are still grieving.
Yet when God begins anew, he rarely does so in ways that confirm our limited vision.
When Samuel arrived in Bethlehem and saw Eliab, everything in him resonated with familiarity. Here was height. Presence. Strength. Here was Saul all over again, or so it seemed. Samuel assumed the pattern would repeat, because human logic almost always does.
But the Lord interrupted him: “Do not consider his appearance or his height… The Lord does not see as humans see.”
But this moment was far larger than Eliab or even Saul. True, it reached backward to Saul, whose outward impressiveness concealed a fearful and self-protective heart. But it also reached forward to Absalom…flawless in appearance yet corrosive in ambition…and to Adonijah, confident and charismatic, but never chosen by God. And it reaches into every generation where God’s people are tempted to confuse visible qualities with faithfulness and where they confuse ability with obedience.
You see, the Lord looks on the heart…not because the heart is sentimental or vague, but because it is the seat of trust, humility, and teachability before him. This truth confronts us, because it exposes how easily we misread what God is doing. Yet it also comforts us, because it means that God mercifully overrules our most confident mistakes. If the future of God’s people rested on our assessments alone, it would be disastrous. But God sees more deeply…and more truly…than we ever could.
So, one by one, Jesse’s sons passed before Samuel. And one by one, God said no. The moment became almost uncomfortable. Finally Samuel asked the unthinkable question: “Are these all the sons you have?” And Jesse responded with a sentence that explains everything: “Well, there is still the youngest…but he is tending the sheep.”
David was not merely overlooked; he was assumed irrelevant. He was not even considered worth summoning until every other option had failed. And yet when he arrived, the Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; this is the one.”
God’s choice overturns every human expectation. The shepherd becomes king. The unnoticed becomes central. The one least likely by human standards becomes the bearer of God’s promise. And when the oil was poured, the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David…not for ease, mind you, but for calling.
What do I mean? Well, at this point the story might tempt us to think that divine choosing leads immediately to divine success. But Scripture refuses to indulge that illusion.
No sooner did the Spirit come upon David than his life became profoundly more difficult. He was drawn into conflict, hunted by Saul, driven into exile, betrayed by those he helped, and pressed to the edge again and again. The gift of the Spirit, although infinitely gracious, was at the same time quite severe. God equipped David not for comfort, but for conflict.
And the same pattern marked David’s greater Son.
At Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit descended and the Father spoke: “You are my beloved Son.” And yet, immediately afterward, the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness…to hunger, temptation, and confrontation with evil. From that moment on, Jesus’ ministry was marked by misunderstanding, hostility, and eventual rejection. The Messiah was not crowned, humanly speaking…he was crucified. The cornerstone was not admired; it was rejected.
Which brings us naturally to John 9.
The man born blind received his sight…oh happy day…but then everything fell apart. Instead of celebration, there was interrogation. Instead of praise and thanksgiving, there was suspicion. His parents were bullied. He was mocked, tried, labelled a sinner, and finally expelled from the community. Suffering was not removed following his healing…in fact, it accompanied it.
And this is where Scripture presses on us most firmly.
The trouble that follows obedience is not evidence of God’s displeasure. It is often the mark of belonging to him. Likewise, suffering is not necessarily a sign of sin…it may be…but more often than not, suffering is the tool of formation. The wilderness is not proof of abandonment, but of presence. God’s children are not spared discipline; they are shaped by it.
The man born blind ended up seeing more clearly than anyone else…not just physically, but spiritually. He knew Jesus because he walked the path that God’s chosen ones always walk…the path of humble and obedient submission despite anything and everything contrary to our hopes and dreams.
Very few of us recognise God’s best work while it is happening. We recognise it later…looking back, often with some astonishment, sometimes with quiet gratitude. We realise then that the thing we once mourned was not the thing we needed most. The door that closed did not ruin us as we may have thought at the time…rather it redirected us.
Samuel never saw the full shape of what God was doing when he poured the oil on David’s head. All he knew was that God had chosen differently this time. David himself would not understand it for years…through caves, betrayals, fear, and exile. Even the man born blind did not fully understand his own story until he was standing outside the synagogue, rejected and yet truly seeing for the first time. And remember, the disciples did not understand the crucifixion until they saw Jesus resurrected.
But in each case, the disappointment was not wasted. The closed door was not arbitrary. The unlikely choice was not accidental. God was seeing what they could not yet see…and what we can not yet see.
And that may be where some of us are today…still mourning something that did not turn out as we hoped, still puzzled by a decision God made that felt strange, even wrong, at the time. Scripture does not rush us past that grief. But it does invite us to trust the God who looks on the heart…the God whose choices are wiser than ours, whose paths are deeper than our plans, and whose purposes often come disguised as interruptions.
The story of Samuel, of David, of Jesus, and of the man born blind reminds us that God’s most faithful work often begins where our certainty ends. But one day…perhaps not soon, perhaps only on the other side of eternity…but one day we will look back and say: That door had to close, so that this one could open.
And only then will we see clearly.
Now this sermon began with Samuel mourning what had gone wrong, but it has ended with a man who could truly say, “I once was blind, but now I see.”
In between stand David, Jesus, and all who follow the same pattern of divine choosing followed by costly faithfulness…like our beloved persecuted brethren who have cried out for much of their lives: How long O Lord?
God sees differently. God chooses differently. God forms his people through suffering, not despite it.
And if we can learn to trust…if we can believe that the God who looks on the heart is present with us even in the wilderness…then our grief will not have the final word.
True sight will.
Shall we pray?
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2026
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