Isa.55:8 – For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
It is hard, rather let me say, it is impossible to understand the ways of the Lord. As Isaiah famously said, “His ways are not my ways”. Here we are, casual observers in God’s master scheme unfolding all around us. We are created beings living inside of God’s creation. Jeremiah said we are like clay pots at the potter’s house. The clay pot cannot possibly understand the ways of the potter. The good news in all of this, even in our cluelessness we are the center of God’s plan. All the chaos exploding all around us has one ultimate goal, the salvation and glorification of fallen man. Yep, that’s right. I said glorification. We will soon be like Him when we see Him at His return. Here is how Jonathan Edwards describes this dilemma.
“In all that God does in all these great and manifold works of his, he acts for some end. It is not only inconsistent with the infinite wisdom of God that he should act and have no end in acting, but it is inconsistent with the nature of an intelligent, voluntary and free agent. God don’t act under any compulsion; neither does he act by any blind necessity, as a stone by its weight unavoidably descends, and as fuel when enkindled burns by necessity of nature, without any such thing as election or will. He that has given understanding and will to angels and men, and made ’em voluntary agents, has counsel and understanding and free agency himself in the highest perfection. There are many of the works of God that we don’t understand and are not able to say what God’s particular design in them should be.…The succession of changes and revolutions and series of events in the world of mankind to our dim and short sight appear to us like confusion, appear as though things come to pass by chance. And some particular dispensations especially that are very mysterious, that it is difficult for us to conceive what end he should have in them…”
So what is God’s end? Jesus loves you and has a plan for your life. His love and His plan are great mysteries that are part of everything that sometimes seems so chaotic. Let the crazy stuff bring you to Him. Let Him pour His love over you and begin His work of redemption and restoration in your life. When all the dust settles and His kingdom is firmly in place you will be put on display to show the glory of His grace at work in your life. I am so glad His way are not my ways, His ways are working everything out for good in my life.
1 thought on “THE DIFFERENT WAYS OF GOD”
When we don’t understand or maybe worse, when we think we know, we likely grasp only a portion. Fluctuation of our dependency’s upon His counsel, His way, slows our progress and put us at risk of self inflicted failure. That is never His plan, yet His tremendous grace is often needed to rescue our deviations, when we call upon it, He is there.