Devotional

God’s Ways – Paula Hill

Paula Hill“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).

One learns certain lessons in life. These lessons are not learned out of force or in anticipation of an exam at school, but by observance and mere repetition. While some lessons are learned by the experience gained attending the “school of hard knocks,” some good lessons can actually be gained by listening to the wisdom of others. Finally, all at once, the reality of truth has become a vital part of your everyday existence.

This was the way it was for me when I was a child. I grew up listening to a godly mother who simply spoke and modeled God’s Word before me each and every day. Such was the case, many times when as a child, adolescent, and then as a teenager, I would complain about anything I didn’t think was fair or right. “Why?” was always my question of choice.Then as usual, Mom, with conviction in her voice, would quote Isaiah 55:8-9.

To me, it just seemed like an easy way out. By quoting scrip- ture, she didn’t have to give me a “real” answer. I felt like it was just her way of pacifying me until I would forget and go on to some other subject.

Now as the years have gone by, I have found myself many times quoting the same scripture to my children when they ask “Why?”. Through these many years, some things have changed and some things haven’t. Often, I still don’t understand why God works in the ways that He does. I don’t always understand why He allows some things to happen at all.

The thing that has changed is that I have experienced the calming and soothing truth of those words in Isaiah 55 time after time. What a great “stress reliever!” How frightening it would be to know that His thoughts and His ways were like mine.

What a mess I would find myself in if His decision processes were like mine. I am sure that if I tried to “outthink” God and go ahead of Him, I couldn’t even begin to imagine all the problems I would cre- ate. I can rest peacefully, knowing that I don’t have to find the answer to all the “whys” in life. God knows them and that’s enough for me to rest from the worry of it all.

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