God’s Ways Are Higher…and Better

If you’ve been in the church for any amount of time, you’re probably familiar with the passage:

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

From the pulpit to the pew, it’s a famous declaration about the nature and character of God. I’ve often heard it used in the context of things we simply do not understand, mostly concerning tragic or troubling circumstances. In fact, I can’t begin to name the number of times I’ve heard people attribute horrific events to God, only to follow it up with, “Well, his ways and thoughts are higher than ours.” Not to mention the times I’ve witnessed people suggest that God actually performed or orchestrated such atrocities in order to teach the victims a lesson.

Listen, I totally agree that there are certain things in life that are simply beyond our comprehension or ability to bring under logic and reason. In fact, I think the more we realize that we’re all swimming in a vast ocean of mystery and beautiful uncertainty, the healthier we will be. However, I have a tough time when we use this passage in a way that makes God out to be some kind of monster who puts illness, disease, or disaster on his creation—and then hides behind the mystery of his “higher ways.”

Whenever our “theologies” somehow make God out to be dark, mean, mad, or morbid, I think we need to allow Holy Spirit to search out what we’re actually saying and believing to be true about God.

WHAT ISAIAH IS NOT SAYING

One of the most basic principles of interpreting Scripture is reading a passage in context. Otherwise, we can completely miss what the author is saying and addressing. When we neglect context, it’s kind of like walking into a conversation mid-sentence and then trying to figure out what everyone is talking about. You can draw all kinds of crazy conclusions that way.

When we look at the context surrounding Isaiah’s prophecy, it becomes undeniably clear that he’s speaking in the midst of God releasing promises of mercy, restoration, and compassion. If we go back just two chapters, Isaiah 53 speaks of the Suffering Servant who would come and rescue his people from their sins—one of the most famous prophetic passages concerning the cross.

Then, in the following chapter, Isaiah announces promises of incredible restoration:

“The sons of the desolate one will be more numerous than the sons of the married woman…you will spread to the right and to the left…Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; and do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced.” —Isaiah 54:1, 3–4

I encourage you to read these chapters in their entirety. There is something beautiful unfolding here. Isaiah is announcing promises of restoration and covenant faithfulness that Christians have long understood as finding their fulfillment in Jesus and the new covenant.

And then we arrive at Isaiah 55. Listen to the invitation:

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters…” —Isaiah 55:1

This is the backdrop for God declaring that his ways are higher than ours. But it gets even better. Just before the famous passage, Isaiah writes:

“Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous person his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” —Isaiah 55:7

And then comes the declaration:

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” —Isaiah 55:8–9

Did you catch that?

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts…”

In other words, God has just declared that he will have compassion and abundantly pardon, and then explains that his thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways.

Allow me to cut to the chase…

The Isaiah prophecy of “My thoughts are not your thoughts, My ways are not your ways” is not some behind-the-back statement God makes about himself to justify darkness or twisted actions. On the contrary, it’s a declaration that his ways and thoughts transcend ours in kindness, compassion, and mercy. They are, quite frankly, incomprehensibly good—beyond what we, in our own human frailty, can even begin to imagine. You might even say they’re “too good to be true.”

Human beings have a tendency to place limits around forgiveness. We draw lines around mercy. We decide who deserves compassion and who doesn’t. We keep score, demand payment, hold grudges, and struggle to imagine forgiveness without some kind of payback.

And God says: My thoughts aren’t your thoughts. My ways aren’t your ways. Mine are higher.

What if we’ve been reading that almost completely backward? What if God isn’t saying, “I sometimes do things that appear horribly cruel to you, but you simply have to trust that I know better”? What if he’s saying, “You cannot begin to comprehend the depths of My mercy, compassion, and willingness to restore”? That seems to be precisely what the context is telling us.

To say that God executes dark, retributive, or vindictive motives and then backs them up with, “My ways and thoughts are higher than yours,” would be like me saying to my kids, “Listen, I’m going to hurt you and execute vengeance on you, but it’s only because my thoughts and ways are higher than yours.”

Would we call that higher parenting? Of course not. We would recognize that I was using my superiority as a parent to justify behavior that would otherwise be recognized as cruel. Yet somehow, when it comes to God, we can take things we would immediately recognize as darkness in ourselves, attribute them to him, and then call them “higher.” Friends, I think Isaiah is inviting us to see something far more beautiful.

Although the far-reaching goodness and compassion of the Triune God are often obscured by our own fallen assumptions and non-contextual readings, God’s ways and thoughts are still higher, better, and far beyond what we can even begin to comprehend. After all, these “higher ways” proceed from the very God who extends his life to humanity and says:

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.” —Isaiah 55:1

This is the One whom Christ came to reveal and release inside of the human race.

Beloved, let us shake loose from every dark view we’ve inherited about the Father, Son, and Spirit. May we awaken more and more to the goodness and mercy of Abba revealed in Jesus.

Perhaps the scandal of Isaiah 55 isn’t that God’s ways are mysteriously darker than ours. Perhaps it’s that they are unimaginably better. His mercy reaches farther. His compassion runs deeper. His forgiveness exceeds the boundaries we continually try to place around it. And when humanity wondered what those “higher ways” actually looked like, God didn’t leave us guessing. He gave them a face: Jesus.

Apparently, Jesus knows something much higher and more beautiful than we have yet to discover!

—RA