Our Daily Bread Devotional For March 27, 2025 : Topic - When They Don’t See
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Bible in a Year :
The Lord told [Samuel]: “. . . It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me.”
Insight
God set the Israelites apart to be His chosen people. They were to obey His laws and not follow the practices and customs of the surrounding nations (Leviticus 18:1-5; 20:26). Four hundred years later, His people demanded a king to rule over them “such as all the other nations have” (1 Samuel 8:5; see v. 20). Samuel—who faithfully served as Israel’s judge, military leader, priest, and prophet for thirty-five years—was now old, and his sons were unfit to succeed him (v. 5). Faced with external threats, the Israelites wanted a human king to lead them to war. In so doing, they rejected God as their king (v. 7; 12:12). They asked Samuel to intercede for them, and he assured them of his prayers. He exhorted them to remain faithful to God—to obey His laws and to serve Him wholeheartedly because they were God’s covenant people (12:14-15, 20-24).
This tale by H. G. Wells, “The Country of the Blind,” would likely resonate with the prophet Samuel. Toward the end of his life, his “sons did not follow his ways” in loving and serving God (1 Samuel 8:3). Their spiritual blindness was mirrored by “the elders of Israel” (v. 4), who told Samuel to “give us a king” (v. 6). They’d all turned their eyes from God and faith in Him. God told Samuel, “It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me” (v. 7).
It can hurt when those we care for reject God in spiritual blindness. But there’s hope even for those whom “the god of this age has blinded” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Love them. Pray for them. The one who “made his light shine in our hearts” (v. 6) can do the same for them.
Reflect & Pray
How does it encourage you to know that God sees those who can’t see Him? Why is there always hope for even the spiritually blind?
Loving God, please help me to pray for those who are blind to Your love and to trust You with them.
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