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.”

If God thought and acted the way that I would if I were God, he would have made me a couple of inches taller, a lot more athletic, with a better memory than I have now. I wouldn’t need glasses, wouldn’t have occasional pain in my back and my knees. In fact, I wouldn’t be aging at all. I would be young in body and mature in mind.

That’s a rather self-centered way of looking at things. We can do better than that. If God thought and acted more like us, Ukraine and Russia would not be at war. Neither would Israel and Gaza. There would have been no assassination attempt on former President Trump. Our country wouldn’t be so divided politically and economically and morally. As a species, we would all get along. If God’s thoughts were our thoughts…

Now here’s the problem with all that thinking. We are putting the blame on the wrong set of thoughts and ways. This is the world that we humans have refashioned for ourselves against God’s thoughts and ways. He planned a perfect paradise for us to enjoy. We spoiled it with our fall into sin. We keep making it worse with our selfishness.

It’s true that if we had our way we wouldn’t have to suffer the consequences of the mess we have made. But what good would that do? That would only teach us to be content to be separated and estranged from him in this poor counterfeit paradise we try to construct for ourselves. The way that we think apart from God ruins everything now. Even when we think we are making progress, it eventually leads to death and hell.

Because God is a good Father, he doesn’t go with our ideas. He has a better idea. He lets us feel the consequences of our sinful mess. I should probably visit the doctor or the dentist on a regular basis, whether I am feeling well or not, just to get a check-up. More often, I don’t go until I am feeling some kind of symptoms. There is a pain somewhere that tells me something isn’t right.

People tend not to seek the Lord until they feel some kind of discomfort–an uneasy conscience, a broken relationship, a nagging illness, a personal tragedy. Author C.S. Lewis was fond of saying, “Pain is God’s megaphone.” It makes us aware of sin, a broken relationship with God, and leads us toward repentance. That’s not necessarily because the pain is the result of some specific sin in our lives, though sometimes it might be. Rather, it wakes us up to our brokenness. It sends us looking for God until we hear him speaking in his word.

But here is the real reason his thoughts, his ways, as contained and explained in his word, are better: He is the God who saves. The whole context of this chapter of Isaiah is God’s invitation to the feast of salvation. Even if we have been wicked and are guilty of evil, he invites us to turn to the Lord “and he will have mercy on him,” and “he will freely pardon.” Mercy, pardon, forgiveness freely given–This is the way God thinks. This is the promise God makes when we listen to his word.

This isn’t the way that we naturally think. When someone has done wrong, we want to see them pay. Especially when someone has done something wrong to me, we want to see them pay. We intend to establish blame. We demand justice. Somebody has to take the blame.

That is not the first thing the Lord looks for. He is looking for whom to forgive, not whom to blame. He has already blamed his Son. Jesus paid everything for everyone with his death on the cross. God wants to reconcile with us, not punish us. He wants to be our friend, not our Accuser and Judge. He has made receiving his grace effortless and free.

That’s not how we think. That’s not our way. It’s better, higher than the heavens are above the earth. It’s an invitation to trust, to trust the God who offers such grace in his word.