In our last visit we found that the way to experience God’s mercy and pardon is to seek Him, call on Him, forsake what you know is contrary to His character and will and then turn to Him by faith.
For some this might seem too easy. But Isaiah goes on to show us why we might have a hard time understanding it all. In Isaiah 55:8-9 God declares, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways…As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
It’s like when Nicodemus was talking to Jesus in John 3. After Jesus explained God’s ways and thoughts Nicodemus responded, “How can this be?” In other accounts in the Gospels Jesus was thought to be out of His mind. So was Paul when he stood before king Festus to give a defense of His faith experience. Acts 26:24 says that “Festus interrupted Paul’s defense. ‘You are out of your mind, Paul!…Your great learning is driving you insane.’” The disciples, on the day of Pentecost, were thought to be drunk!
Isaiah is not suggesting you should not use your mind, nor is he suggesting you should not search to understand God’s ways. He merely shares the fact that independent of His revelation, His Word, we will come short of fully understanding His plan and provision for our lives.
