Isaiah 55 Study: Trusting God’s Higher Ways

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. - Isaiah 55:8

I don’t think any human on earth enjoys feeling limited. And yet, this is exactly what Isaiah 55:8 speaks to.  

We’re making our way through Isaiah 55, this week we’re on verse 8. It carries forward the thought from verse 7, where the prophet Isaiah is pleading on behalf to forsake our ways and thoughts and return to the Lord.

Let’s pause and see how our ways and thoughts differ from God’s. It’s common to believe ourselves to be good while peering down our noses on God’s supposed goodness. If we don’t understand it, we immediately distrust Him. 

There’s nothing wrong with trusting something we don’t understand, right? It’s funny, we do this and yet we don’t even fully understand ourselves and yet we are predisposed to trust in our own thoughts. 

We’re all out here just trying to live our best lives, be generally good people and make a difference in our corner of the world. So, why does the Bible and Christianity keep pressing in on our flawed existence? 

Let’s look at who God is and then we can see how it compares to us. When God created the world, He knew what He was doing. He knew His perfectly crafted creations would - once given autonomy - attempt to destroy themselves. Sin entered the world when humans chose beautiful, good things that God created over their Creator. And we can’t even blame Adam and Eve for starting this sin train, because we continue to do the same every day.

He is the source of all life and He’s created lovely things around us to point toward His beauty. And while He created these beautiful things for our enjoyment, He knew they would only give us a taste of life whereas He could offer life itself. 

Since all humanity is made in God’s image, we’re reflections of Him. We have knowledge, but only a reflection of His. We have a finite glimpse into the present, past, and future whereas God has the fully expanded view. He knew every one of us before He even started crafting the world into existence.

This is what is meant when Isaiah 55:8 says, “my thoughts are not yours…” We simply don’t have the capacity within our limited selves. If we don’t come to this conclusion on our own, we’ll keep living like we do in fact know more than Him. We may do outwardly Christianly things, but inwardly we trust our gut more than God. 

It’s easy to swing to the other extreme and live in such self-loathing that it appears humble and hyper-spiritual. Notice this passage doesn’t focus on the death of our ways but rather the life in His.

Being made in the image of God means we will always have the choice to choose a limitless God in a limited world. And that’s meant to empower us to go out, confident in the world knowing we’ve chosen the source of life instead of mists of temporal pleasures. 

It is impossible to understand our need for God if we think we know more than Him. But this is exactly what makes the Isaiah 55 invitation so beautiful. It’s an invitation which was extended towards us, despite what we have done (verse 7). 

But He gives each of us a choice - we can choose Him or not. 

When we choose to find our identity and satisfaction in people or in the beautiful things God created, we’ve limited ourselves. I wonder what life we could find when we look to Him who knows all things?