“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “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

Thoughts on today’s verse

No matter how we try to perceive God, he is still God and we are not. We must forever remember that the original, and still primary sin was to try to become like God in terms of knowledge and understanding. We are to know God, but we can never fully know about him. We are to take on his character, but we cannot approach his majesty. This is both exciting and frustrating. But the promise remains that one day we will be like him and see him as he is.

Prayer:

Tender Shepherd, thank you for being so patient with me when I cannot fully understand and appreciate your holy and transcendent character. Thank you for sending Jesus so I can know you better and trust you to know me better than I know myself. I look forward to seeing you face to face when Jesus comes to bring me home. Until that day, please know I love you. Through Jesus I offer my thanks and praise. Amen.

by Phil Ware
used by permission

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The post God’s Ways appeared first on Thoughts About God.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says 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

My parents wanted me to become an Economist but I wanted a career in Mass Communication. I set off, weighing my options and chances without consulting God. Then came series of delays, disappointments and frustrations – God had a different agenda. Neither my parents’ plans nor mine met His priority list. He knows the future; He has a different assignment altogether wrapped up for me. The best way to make this happen was by allowing my arrangements to be interrupted through orchestrated disappointments so that, His divine will could be done in my life. Today, I am happy and fulfilled – God has positioned me where I am meant to be.

Can you relate to my story above? Are there times you got stuck with your aspirations or life pursuit? Your answer is simply the same as many others out there. Life is filled with dreams, and cravings. Daily, we find ourselves engrossed with lots of desperate visions. Little do we truly consider the future validity of our longings in the light of God’s purposes for us.

Pause and ponder over some disappointments you’ve encountered in life. Do you think they all happened by mistake? There are such disappointments that happen in life that were allowed by God to stop us on our tracks and prevent us from making grave mistakes. It could be disappointment in our relationships, carrier path, where to settle down, who to marry or businesses to engage in.

God is an All-Knowing God who sees the end from the beginning. Human beings are limited in their knowledge and see just the present. In our text above, the phrase “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts” connotes the huge disparity between God’s wisdom and our limited understanding. We are confined to our little thoughts while God is universal.

It is not all problems and disappointments that are destructive. Lots of them are organized compasses that redirect us to our places of purpose. What are you presently passing through? Heart break, delays or inexplicable circumstances? I want to encourage you that, there is a message behind that heartache. Like a loving father, God is protecting you from an unseen havoc. It might seem painful right now but, if you choose to obey God and let Him have His way, you will be happier at the end.

LET GO AND LET GOD.

By Deborah Yemi-Oladayo
Used by Permission

Further Reading

• God’s Plan or My Plan? – Don Myers on Discerning God’s Will

• We Plan – God Directs – by Katherine Kehler

• Trusting God’s Plan in Trouble – by Charles Stanley

The post When God Interrupts Our Plans appeared first on Thoughts About God.

It is important to recognize that God dwells in a different realm. He occupies another dimension. “My thoughts are not like your thoughts. Your ways are not like my ways. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9).

Make special note of the word like. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are they even like ours. We aren’t even in the same neighborhood. We’re thinking, Preserve the body; he’s thinking, Save the soul. We dream of a pay raise. He dreams of raising the dead. We avoid pain and seek peace. God uses pain to bring peace. “I’m going to live before I die,” we resolve. “Die so you can live,” he instructs. We love what rusts. He loves what endures. We rejoice at our successes. He rejoices at our confessions.

Our thoughts are not like God’s thoughts. Our ways are not like his ways. He has a different agenda. He dwells in a different dimension. He lives on another plane.

What controls you doesn’t control him. What troubles you doesn’t trouble him. What fatigues you doesn’t fatigue him. Is an eagle disturbed by traffic? No, he rises above it. Is the whale perturbed by a hurricane? Of course not; he plunges beneath it. Is the lion flustered by the mouse standing directly in his way? No, he steps over it.

How much more is God able to soar above, plunge beneath, and step over the troubles of the earth! “What is impossible with man is possible with God” (see Matthew 19:26). Our questions betray our lack of understanding:

How can God be everywhere at one time? (Who says God is bound by a body?)

How can God hear all the prayers that come to him? (Perhaps his ears are different from yours.)

How can God be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? (Could it be that heaven has a different set of physics than earth?)

How vital that we pray, armed with the knowledge that God is in heaven. Pray with any lesser conviction, and our prayers are timid, shallow, and hollow. Look up and see what God has done, and watch how your prayers are energized.

This knowledge gives us confidence as we face the uncertain future. We know that he is in control of the universe, and so we can rest secure. But important also is the knowledge that this God in heaven has chosen to bend near toward earth to see our sorrow and hear our prayers. He is not so far above us that he is not touched by our tears.

Though we may not be able to see his purpose or his plan, the Lord of heaven is on his throne and in firm control of the universe and our lives. So we entrust him with our future. We entrust him with our very lives.

By Max Lucado

Used by permission

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The post Where is God? appeared first on Thoughts About God.