Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isn’t your own life clear evidence that your thoughts are not the same as God’s? Who of us would ever have come up with this plan? Not a single one of us would have chosen everything we have experienced and endured so far. 

But God’s thoughts are not only different. Isaiah tells us that they are higher. They are better. If we had to come up with a way to heaven on our own, we would think that you had to work your way up. You had to earn your place. That is how it works with everything else we know. There is no free lunch. When you get an email offering you some expensive item, or some great treasure, for free, you assume it must be a scam. When some store or business is offering something for “free,” you wonder “What’s the catch.” There must be strings attached. If something is worth having, you have to work for it. You certainly have to pay for it.

If God worked that way, then every funeral would truly be a sad day, because those who have died may have been dear to us, but not one could be so good or perfect to earn a place in heaven. Neither could any of us. All would be lost, and life would always end in fear and sadness.

But God’s ways are higher than our ways. He gives away the unbelievable gift. Forgiveness is free, and that means that heaven is free as well. Would you think of asking him for that? Would you even dare make the request, if he did not reveal it to us? “Lord, I know that I can’t do everything you demand, so could you just give me heaven instead? In fact, could you just crucify the only Son you have, could you let him suffer the agony of hell I can’t imagine, so that I don’t have to?”

Isn’t it better to have his heavenly gift sooner rather than later? A popular hymn at Lutheran funerals claims “…earth’s but a desert drear–heaven is my home.” That’s not to say we should depart from God’s plan for us in this “desert drear” and take it upon ourselves to try to get to heaven before he is ready to take us. Nor is it to say that God doesn’t give us some pleasant stops along our way through this desert, times filled with joy and fun, and plenty of blessings. But compared to heaven? There the hard work and the hard life are over. The holidays have begun, to borrow a phrase from C.S. Lewis. All of our existence above God describes as “rest,” not because we do nothing but sleep or sit, but because there is no such thing as hard and difficult anymore.

This same wise and gracious God has good things in mind for each of us while we are here as well. Many years ago I heard a wise old pastor describe his answers to our prayers this way: “God always gives us what we ask, or he gives us something better.” The only kind of gifts he knows how to give are good ones. That may not be easy to believe when life his hard, but God promises. Trust his grace, and trust his wisdom, and know that his “higher” thoughts and ways are better for all of us.