First impressions

The football team from the school which two of our grandsons, Max and Ben, attend here in Leicester recently reached the final of a local schools football competition.  The extra exciting element of their achievement was that the final was to be played at the King Power Stadium, home to Leicester City F.C.  Sue and I were delighted to be able to attend the match.

Considering that the children who were playing were still relatively young, I was impressed by the level of skill and commitment on show.  In the first half, one particular player stood out as very pacy and skilful.  The player had long blond hair, some of it tied up in a bob, and was smaller in stature than many of the others; their pace and skill more than made up for the lack of height.  My initial thought as I watched this player was how great it was that a girl was allowed to play in a mainly boys team, and that she more than matched most of her male teammates and opponents.  As the games progressed, however, it became clear that the player was in fact not a she but a he!  First impressions are often misleading.

I was reminded of this fact again this morning as I took part in a local parkrun.  The parkrun scheme organises free, weekly, timed 5k runs in this and many other countries.  Today was only my second parkrun (and I beat the time I achieve on the previous occasion!)  As the 500 or so people at my local parkrun gathered for the start, I looked round at the other runners.  In my mind I began to weigh up my chances of running faster than some of the others.  Most of those gathered looked fitter than me, but there were a few who, perhaps due to their apparent age or obvious girth, I thought might finish further down the field than me.

Clearly my first impressions of some of the other runners were way off the mark.  A number of people who seemed older or who carried more weight found no difficulty in overtaking me.  A couple of men were pushing their children in buggies and sped past me.  One girl who must have only been about eight years old didn't have any difficulty in keeping ahead of me.  Once again, I was reminded of the old warning not to judge a book by its cover.

Yet we tend to do so very easily, don't we - judging people on how they appear.  It's just as well that God doesn't judge us on outward appearances.  On one occasion God said to the prophet Samuel, 'I do not judge as people judge. They look at the outward appearance, but I look at the heart' (1 Samuel 16.7).  A reminder to us all not to trust first impressions or judge by outward appearances.  Sometimes people are very different from what they may first appear!