Sunday Stretch: Vol. 26

Start off your week with a grounded take on Bible, prayer, the world, and your life ...

As I read through this week’s texts, in yet another snowy March week here in Minnesota, my mind keeps going back to one of my own personal central Bible passages - one that I’ve held onto and clung to over the years. That text is Isaiah 55:8-9:

“Is. 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.

⁹ For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Maybe a cursory read of this passage reads God as aloof or arrogant, but I’ve actually always found this passage freeing because, ultimately, I do not want to God.

It’s liberating and joyous to remember that God’s ways are not in fact our ways. That God, as our first passage says this week, does not see as the world sees. We worship a surprising God, one who works often in the shadows and the corners and the underbelly of life. God pops up where you’d least expect God to be.

Isn’t that wonderful? Sure, sometimes it can be frustrating. But I am so glad I don’t have to be God. I am not meant to be God. Neither are you, or anyone else on this earth. God’s math is deeper than simple arithmetic. God’s love is not finite. God’s miracles are unearned. Thanks be to God, and as we continue to wander in the wilderness of Lent, I am grateful that God works so well in the wilderness.

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