Gentle and Lowly, Chapter 17 - “His Ways are Not Our Ways”
“God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways.” I know I have heard people refer to this paraphrase from Isaiah 55 for most of my life. And, like Dane Ortlund points out in Chapter 17 of Gentle and Lowly, we tend to think of this as a reference to the mysteriousness of God. That thought comes to mind most often when something has happened that we cannot explain, including when something bad has happened. Because we cannot comprehend the good that can come out of a time of struggle, a fight with sadness, or a tragic occurrence—all while knowing that God is good—we come back to “His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways.
How refreshing it was to see Ortlund open this verse up to an even more comforting understanding. As Isaiah 55 shows us, the mysteriousness of God’s ways are not merely about how He works through what appears to be bad, but even more through what appears to be good. Isaiah expressly ties the mystery of God’s thoughts and ways to His compassion for us and His “abundant” forgiveness given to us. And what Isaiah could only see dimly, we see clearly. The truly amazing thoughts and ways of God are most easily understood through the glorious truth of His gospel. We were not worthy of His compassion and His forgiveness. We didn’t even want it. Yet, because of the mystery of His great love for us, He gives them freely through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of His very Son. What a glorious mystery!
Brothers and sisters, as we contemplate the mysterious ways of God, it is good to understand that He is sovereign over all of the hardest things we face. But, as we read in this chapter and see in God’s word, it is even better to understand that He is sovereign over all of the joy, the beauty, the compassion, the grace, and the love that we receive in this life. From that beautiful gift, let our joy and beauty and compassion and grace and love abound—for Him, for each other, and for the world that desperately needs it.