"My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," declares YHWH. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isa 55:8-9)The text is clear; it's not ambiguous. And most of us acknowledge that. Sure, sure, God's thoughts are not our thoughts. So, if that's so ... how come we don't believe it?
It has been said you can always tell what a person believes by what they do. After Al Gore introduced his "inconvenient truth" about the problem of global warming, he showed up at a university where I worked. He came to deliver his message about how our aircraft and SUVs are killing the planet, arriving in a private jet with his entourage followed by a train of SUVs. What did Gore believe? Obviously not his own warning. So we claim to believe that God's thoughts are not our thoughts and then complain that God is not thinking like we are. What do we believe?
When we see difficulties, we respond, often, with ... distrust. "Where is God when it hurts?" "Why would a good God do ...?" "Is He even there?" God says, "Hey, I don't think like you do. I don't operate like you do." And, "Trust Me." Joseph saw it. "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Gen 50:20). Job saw it. "YHWH gave and YHWH has taken away. Blessed be the name of YHWH" (Job 1:21). It's there, all the time. We must not expect Him to be like us. Indeed, we can't afford Him to be like us. We need a God whose thoughts are higher than ours and whose ways exceed our capacity. We can trust Him even when -- especially when -- we don't understand.
It's almost like we shouldn't expect to understand how YHWH works, what He thinks, and why He does/allows things because we're not Him. It's possible that how He measures things like good, and how we measure things like good, might not always line up.
ReplyDeleteIt is comforting to know that He is not limited in knowledge or power like we are. I hear people describe God as aloof or detached or not fully knowledgeable, and I can't help but wonder at how they do not despair at every bump in the night.
ReplyDeleteFor us, "Just trust me" might be too much of a leap, but when it comes from God, it is perfectly natural and perfectly true. It is arrogance on our part to think we should understand and He should conform.
ReplyDeleteI think that "Just trust me." sounds worse than it is. If we accept that YHWH is who He is represented to be (Omni everything, creator of everything, etc), then it makes perfect sense to "Just trust" Him. Other than His, who else is worthy of that level of trust.
DeleteI get your point, especially for those who are skeptics or nonbelievers, but it's much more a problem on their end than YHWH's.