Sometimes I hear people carelessly use this phrase, “your ways are not our ways. Your thoughts are not our thoughts”, to direct us toward the “what” of God’s will and work in a circumstance is a scripture I have pondered a lot.
The reference is to Isaiah 55:8-9
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
The first part:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts….”
This first-person order of God’s declaration suggests 2 things to me as it is written in Isaiah 55:8-9, …. My (God’s) thoughts are not your (man’s) thoughts…..
1.) It points me to Solomon’s caution in Proverbs 3:5-6
5 “Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart
AND LEAN NOT ON YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING.”
Our own reasoning capacity is not trustworthy. We are jaded by our own biases, desires, and arrogance of intellect. Furthermore, a trusting child of God should have the discernment to recognize when a thought is arising from God’s word to and in him versus arising from one’s own reason and motivations. Always the best and highest thoughts that occur to us will be from God!! Therefore we can have no pride in or claim to the power of His word in or through us. We are simply servants who speak what He gives us. In prophetic utterances we see again and again “thus says the Lord”…. and we need to be very sure which is which. We do that by looking to the whole of the word, searching like the Bereans, to test the truth of any single thought or line of reasoning. If it doesn’t line up with God’s, it has no authority and is merely a personal opinion.
“in ALL YOUR WAYS ( heart, soul, mind strength – Luke 10:27) submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” If we are obedient in all things (obedience being the evidence of our love) then we can walk confidently knowing God has made the way for us.
“neither are your ways my ways,
declares the Lord.”
We cannot simply set out to act and assume that we are in God’s will without having first trusted His word and being obedient to it.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
As stated before, the BEST and highest thoughts of man will always have come from God. If we follow them, then the ways in which we walk will prove to be highest and BEST, as well.
Orthodoxy preceding orthopraxy. What we believe (and what source it arises from) is important. From what source does our thinking arise and what are its consequences?