For 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 55:7-9
I mentioned this verse in my last post and I wanted to camp here for just a moment. My ways are not your ways…My thoughts are not your thoughts. What does that mean? As the heavens are higher than the earth…hmmm.
Allow me to suggest that it isn’t just that God’s ways and thoughts are higher than ours, as in higher in purity and purpose. I believe God’s ways and thoughts are so “other” than ours that we can’t even hope to understand them. They don’t even share the same zip code, the same state, the same continent, or the same planet. God has ways of doing things and causing His will to come to pass that we will always be responding, “WOW!! I never would have imagined that happening.” Let me give you an example from my own life.
While I was married to my first wife, she was God’s perfect will for me; God-ordained, God-blessed, fruitful and multiplying (we did have four kids), God’s hand on our lives and His stamp of approval. No question about that. God is also working in the heart of a certain young lady from Arkansas, moving in hers and other’s lives in order to get her to Euless, TX. She’s never been married, but has wanted to be a mother all her life. She’s a working professional and has traveled and led a very active and healthful life. God is preparing her for her destiny, to be the wife of a certain father of four and a mother who will unconditionally love and care for those children as if they were her own.
Wait a minute. How can both of those scenarios be true? I’m still married to God’s perfect will for my life. There is no other. Oh wait, God had a back-up plan. Just in case the first wife didn’t receive her healing like she should have, God is getting Plan B ready, right? Yeah, right.
I can’t say what I think of the “back-up plan” theory, other than to say it’s the byproduct of a male bovine eating grass or hay.
Do we think God is so small that He can’t multitask? Just because we can’t wrap our finite brains around what we see God doing doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Yes, I was married to God’s perfect will. I also know that He was simultaneously preparing His perfect will for my life. I’ll not steal Beth’s thunder as she tells you how God orchestrated her path to Texas. I do know that He was preparing Beth for us and preparing us for Beth while I was still married to my first wife. It wasn’t God’s will that my first wife died, we’ve already visited that. God didn’t cause that to happen, but in His infinite wisdom and power He did use that circumstance to accomplish His perfect will.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
Regardless of what is happening in your life, God can and will use it for your good. He may or may not have caused it to happen, but He did allow it. The Word also tells us that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can handle. If God has allowed something to come into your life that has you walking a little sideways, you can rest assured that He believes you can handle it…with His help.
Okay, so God didn’t cause my wife to die, but He did allow it, so I know He believes I can reasonably handle the situation. In other words, God has faith in me.
Uh, wait a minute; you got that backwards, Wes. We’re supposed to have faith in God.
Yes, we are, but God also has faith in us. He believes that when we follow His leading and obey His voice, we will make the right decisions. He trusts us. That’s called having faith, believing if we do certain things, certain other things will happen. You do the same thing with your child. You raise the child; teach him or her the ways of the Lord, to be a good worker, to be faithful and honest, and then you allow them to go out on their own. Your child becomes an adult and you trust that he or she will make good choices because that’s how you taught and trained them. Is our heavenly Father any different? Well yes, but only in the sense that He is the perfect parent and trains us with perfect truth. It’s up to us as His children to learn the lessons He teaches us.
Let me lay some groundwork. Before my wife got sick, we had been homeschooling our girls. For some reason that I can’t remember, we decided to put them in public school. They really wanted to go to a certain school because their best friends from church were at that school. An attendance boundary prevented that. So we end up at a different school with a kindergartener and a second grader. Both girls were in music class for three years before Beth and I were formally introduced. They already had a relationship established with the woman who would eventually become their mother.
I was somewhat of a disciplinarian and could be cold and harsh at times. Ok, I can hear all of you who have known me over the years already agreeing and nodding your heads. Just stop it, okay? Okay. So what movie involves a disciplinarian widower with several children, who has a young woman who loves the sound of music as a nanny for his children, then the widower and the young woman fall in love, marry, and live happily ever after? Hmmm…I wonder. I’m sure it’s the same movie that still is Beth’s all-time favorite movie. By the way, Beth has actually danced on the same steps in Mirabell Gardens in Salzburg, Austria, where Julie Andrews closed the “Do, a Deer” song. Pretty cool, huh?
The funeral was in late September 2003 and I was formally introduced to Beth in December. Because all the girls’ teachers had reached out to our family, I sent them each a personal letter thanking them for their kindness. Because I knew Beth was a believer, I shared a few personal things with her about how God was working in my heart. To my surprise, I received a letter back from her! God was also doing a work in her heart as she walked out her own faith.
As a condition of walking with me and making himself available to me whenever I needed him, “Papa” told me I couldn’t date or even think about dating for a year. In truth, that’s just wisdom when one goes through any major life change, especially the death of a spouse. My emotions were raw and I really couldn’t make wise decisions in that area.
Beth and I began getting to know each other by talking over the phone. We never spent time together alone and I even told her of my commitment to Papa. She agreed that was a necessary step to take. I don’t remember when God spoke to me, but one day He indeed told me she was “the one.” It completely floored me and I argued why she shouldn’t be. She’s too good for me, she’s too beautiful, she’s too this and that. Well yeah, she was too good for me. She still is. But the Father reminded me that it was His good pleasure to give me good gifts, and she was a gift to me. He also told me I had to wait.
As the weeks progressed, we began talking more than we should have. God told me plainly one day to stop all communication with her…period. I said no, I can’t do that. For two hours, I wrestled and prayed intensely about it, but for some reason I couldn’t convince God of the validity of my position. I called Beth and told her what Father had told me. She agreed that I should obey. It hurt me to say it, but I told her I didn’t even know if she would hear from me again. I told her that if she did, she would know that Papa released me from my commitment and that God had spoken to me and released me as well.
It was five long difficult weeks. During prayer and reading the Word one afternoon, God spoke to me from scripture about creating new things, the old things were passing away and wouldn’t even be remembered anymore. I literally started shaking and weeping. I knew what He was saying to me. It was time. I had made the choice, I had endured the fire, I had passed the test.
I mentioned at the beginning of this post that God’s ways are beyond us knowing. That is true when we try to understand them with our natural mind.
Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. 1 Corinthians 2:9
We are all familiar with that oft-quoted verse, but many of us forget, or don’t even know, the next verse.
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. v. 10
Apart from the Holy Spirit, we can never understand the things of God. God dealt deeply with my heart during that year. I heard Him speak truth, comfort, and correction to my heart. God had been preparing good things for me…He had been preparing Beth for me and me for Beth, and I could only understand that because of revelation from the Spirit of God. Beth was far more than I could have ever hoped for, and far better than could have ever “entered into my heart.” But God had prepared those good things for me, just because He loves me.
Hope was once again burning brightly in my heart.
Hope can also burn once again in your heart. Reach out to the Father, He will meet you right where you are. Your situation is not hopeless. God can even resurrect dead dreams. And it doesn’t matter if you’re faithless right now. Even when we are faithless and unfaithful, God will still be faithful to us. He is good, and His mercy endures forever.
Reach out to Him, my friend.
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