How Far? ~ Isaiah 55

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9

If we could calculate the aggregate sum of all human tumult, frustration, and questioning about this human existence, I believe the grand total would center around two words…why me?  Why is this happening to me, why did this occur to my life, why is this happening to me now, will my future be more of this, how long will this happen to me?  This list could go on ad nauseum and every single human on this planet has their own personal list of questions.  And if you are wondering why we humans are so good at fostering our “why me” lists, simply flip over to the 3^rd chapter of Genesis. The very first chapters of the Bible explore the second human ever created seeking and finding a supposed answer to her questioning as she asked herself…If I could think like God and know what God knows…wouldn’t I have all the answers I seek?  Yes, Eve’s desiring to think and know like God changed the human race forever.

Have you ever sat in an advanced mathematics class such as calculus, trigonometry, or linear algebra and wondered just how that professor was scribbling what he was scribbling on that board?  I recall just such a situation as I sat in college trigonometry and wondered what all that chicken scratch was and how a human could possibly learn to process something so abstract.  Yet even though that feeling was rather helpless, such a thing as calculus can be learned with enough fortitude and diligence.  Yet when we attempt the same process with the thinking and ways of Almighty God, the ultimate level of human frustration occurs.  No amount of diligence, earnestness, desire, or intent will ever allow a created human to think and understand like the One that created them, Almighty God.  And as a result, that deficiency can be embraced, resulting in peace, or rejected, resulting in a life of frustration, endless searching, and eventually anger with the whole process.

Our study verses above from chapter 55 of Isaiah bang us on the head with God-given truth about His capability versus the capability of the humans He created.  And as one of God’s created, you can adopt these God-given truths about your human limitations, or you can continue the quest to know what God knows and think like God thinks.  Here’s a few truths that will help set you free from the insanity of constantly questioning, why me God?

1) God does not think like you.  Sorry to break this to you, but no, you cannot approach the heights of thinking like the Almighty God that created everything that has ever existed, keeps this planet daily spinning, and creates and cradles all life in His hands.  And because of your limited human intellectual capacity, you will not know everything that you desire to know in this world.  Including why things are happening in your life the way they are happening, why you don’t have as much money as your neighbor, and why cancer decided to visit your family instead of the family next door.  There is a plan and purpose for every single bit of it and God knows…you do not.

2) God does not act like you.  God ways are higher than that of His created humans...period.  God does not have a sin nature and as a result, has no in-born inclination towards self-preservation or self-advancement over others.  God is immune to the sickness of sin which all humans so greatly suffer.  Consequently, God is outside of what we are capable of imagining as far as purity of behavior and motive.  This alone should infinitely flummox us as we attempt to understand God’s ways; us thinking He should act like us and do what we would do. We cannot truly fathom the perfection of God’s ways…stop trying.

3) The distance between God’s thinking and ways, and ours, is infinite.  So just how far is your home address from Heaven?  If you were to pop open Google maps and seek directions from your home address to heaven, what would the revealed distance and travel time state?  This is obviously a facetious question stated for dramatic impact. God’s home, heaven, is a long, long. Long, way away.  As God sits on His throne with Jesus intercessing for His flock at His right hand, it is nowhere near us in distance…or reason.  And this is just the idea God uses in these verses to illustrate the distance between human thinking and His thinking, His ways and our ways.

As you process the three points above, I pray they impact you in your ongoing questioning.  I pray that today as you are desperately attempting to decipher and answer the riddles of your life’s conundrums, you can come to the realization that unless God desires you to know the answers, you never will.  But all praise be to God, He supplies something much more profound than merely answers to those that have believed in His Son Jesus Christ.  Yes, for those that call Jesus Christ their personal Lord and Savior and have been gifted the very Holy Spirit of God, God gave something better than answers… faith.  And faith in God my friends, is the key to freedom from the need to know.

Faith is God grants freedom from the trial.  Faith in God allows peace to rule the heart even as that heart is being tried by fire.  Faith in God allows the Child of God to soar ever higher even as their circumstances are pulling them down.  You see life is life, and life is hard.  Sin not only has broken this world, but it continues to break the individual lives that live within it.  And just as the disease sin is, those infected with sin spread it, even to the innocent.  A husband’s sin of infidelity bleeds into the lives of his wife and children, destroying the Godly sanctity of family. Even though it was no fault of theirs, the wife and children wonder why it is happening, what they did to cause it, and when their pain will stop.  A drunk driver’s joy ride can end with the devastating death of an innocent life, leaving the family to face the hard questions of why God would allow this.  Yet the greatest force the world has ever known, the gift of faith in God fueled through His very Spirit, allows humans to close that great gap of heaven and earth and approach the very foot of God’s throne in heaven.  The glory and miracle of faith brings not answers, but comfort and peace.

Today, no matter what trial, tribulation, illness, disease, or pain you are enduring, you will not be able to find the answers you are seeking unless God grants them.  And unless God chooses to reveal those answers to you in His perfect timing and thinking, you have nothing but faith to lean upon.  And brother or sister…that is enough.  As you endure, call constantly upon God for His comfort and peace.  As you endure, cry out to God to be near you and you to Him.  For in the midst of trial and tribulation, there is one thing that can be known for those that call Jesus Lord…He will never leave you or forsake you and His plan for your life, no matter what it may look like today, is not to harm you, but prosper you in the hope of the future He has for you.

Blessings ~ Dan

“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” Deuteronomy 31:8 ESV

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 ESV

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