This has been a week of shaking my head and crying to God, “I just don’t understand! I don’t get it!” for various reasons. Marriage breakups just when it appeared there was a breakthrough; cyclone killing hundreds of thousands of people but supplies and food denied by their own government; financial ruin; job losses; wayward children. I’m sure anyone could add to this list and it would never come to an end.
This passage (actually the whole chapter), read in this context, not only gave me comfort, but also silenced much of my questioning:
Isaiah 55:6 “Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
7 let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares 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.
The real question is not, “God, why do these things happen?” but rather, “God, why are You so merciful? Why do You extend grace and mercy to any of us?” I had to repent, and reframe my questions. The real question is, “God, I just don’t get it? Why are You so incredibly merciful to me?”
And so, as in this passage, I seek the Lord while I can; I call upon Him, because He is near. In humble astonishment, He is near, and He loves me.
His Ways are not my ways; they are His ways.
Plea for Grace 