“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you can imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT)
Yesterday, I received this image via text from a dear friend. I waited, unsure of her purpose in sending such a strange picture. I wondered if the connection was slow and the photo was still rendering. It’s not like her to send encoded or non-sensical texts. I zoomed in, trying to gain some inkling of what she was attempting to express, but the image remained blurry, frustrating and without context. Eventually, an additional text bulb appeared. “So this is our life.”
Wait, what?
This blurry, confusing and out-of-context jpeg somehow contained the meaning of life? You have to know, my friend is brilliant. Truly, she’s an orthopedic surgeon, one of the smartest people I know, actually, but even still, I was confused by her assessment. Thankfully, she expounded.
“We may not know why things happen until we get to heaven… the interconnectedness of other people’s lives…”
A second image appeared on my screen and finally caught hold of where my friend was going.
The blurry image was part of a much more complex structure: a flow chart far above my pay grade. While I could not follow the chart, I could at least grasp the complexity of the document, the intelligence of the author and beyond that, the delicacy of the living system it was attempting to represent.
Another text bubble appeared.
“This picture times an infinite amount more complexity is what God sees.”
I stopped trying to follow the flow chart. My friend had made her point. Now I was thinking about the seven billion people on the planet and the level of intellect required to intertwine their lives with purpose while maintaining the gift of free will for everyone. Smoke started to pour from my ears (at least figuratively) and God’s word whispered out from under my thoughts. “For My ways are higher than your ways.” No wonder we can’t come to terms with the blurry, out-of-context screen shot of our own small existence. We are a microscopic portion of a much larger, vastly intricate system; a system that, even on our best days, we still lack the tools to try to understand.
Relief flooded in with this revelation because now I know that I don’t need to know. I can trust God’s character to take care of His kids. I can rely on the promises He’s made readily available in scripture. I know His nature. He’s entirely good. He’s faithful to a thousand generations. He’s paid for my transgressions (yours too) and He’s preparing a place where we can live in love and peace together forever. Between now and then, I can trust Him even though I cannot make sense of it.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” (Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT)
Lord, we struggle to understand what exactly You are doing in and through our lives. Today we realize anew that You are working all things together for those who love You. We see that our piece is small and the whole is huge. We trust that Your ways are impossibly higher than our ways. We stoke all our hope for heaven as we serve You here and now. Amen.