Isa_55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Why do we imagine we can understand all the ways of God? Why?
Why do people refuse to believe God because they don't understand why He doesn't help them in their lives? Why do people equate God's goodness with His keeping their lives free of too much pain? How can the people of a country who have no running water but must walk long distances to get some, who live with diseases that easily beset them, who are so poor they are barely living and are walking skeletons-- how can they PRAISE GOD? They do.
How could those locked in concentration camps where the furnaces burned body after body, still believe in God when they were simply waiting their turn in the furnace? There may have been death by gas in their future, or starvation, or illness bring them to the furnace, but they still died with God's love on their lips, how?!
When bound to a wooden post and you see the metal gates rise up releasing ferocious starving lions running right towards you, how could you sing, Jesus in that moment?! They sang!
When standing on the very top of a pile of wood, tied to a stake and you smell the smoke rising up from beneath you and you know what's coming, and you pray, oh, how you pray thanking God, loving God, asking God to forgive those who are doing this horrible thing to you, HOW!? But they did! THEY DID!
And we cry out there is no God because our lives are miserable in so many ways.
The majority of us are not living the lives of the rich. The majority of us are not living the lives of the carefree. The majority of us are clueless about what the future holds.
And even those who aren't living life on the edge of the precipice of constant unending uncertainty, they find reasons to question God because they can't quite comprehend Him. They truly believe they should be allowed to comprehend God. They want all the answers to all the questions, they feel like they are owed those answers simply because they have the questions. They believe they shouldn't be allowed to have any questions that can't be answered and because they are allowed to have these questions without answers they flail about blaming God, telling God He screwed up and they'd have done it differently, they wouldn't let anyone have a single unanswered question about all of life, all the why this was allowed, why that wasn't allowed. Why did you do this thing, God?! Why didn't you do that thing, God?! I don't understand how you could be so cruel as to let that happen! Why did you allow evil at all?! Why did you? Why? Why, should I believe in a God who allows horrors to exist? Why should I try to even comprehend in the slightest, you are just too awful, it's all your fault, God. There just can't even really be a God because to believe in such a God, why, it'd make me the fool.
So much awfulness in so many ways and man thinks they should be allowed to understand, man thinks they have the capacity to comprehend it all.
As the last breath is taken from a diseased one's mouth; as the heart bursts in the chest of the one starved; as organs shut down; as the flames send shockwaves of agony to a screaming mouth and it stops as unconsciousness takes over; as….
…any horrific death is lived until there is life no more… there is an end. No death is horror free, not even the most peaceful because it leaves behind the world without that life. Death is horror. The wreckage of death makes death horrific even if the process of dying isn't awful, but oh, sometimes it is so awful. However…
…what would have been truly evil would have been no end to the dying process, no end at all, that is evil.
Horrific deaths- through process or not- all have an end. And the wreckage of death remains reminding us all it exists even for us, but our hope is there because there is an end, a stopping of the agonies for those dying.
What would have been truly diabolical would have been no end, no hope after the end.
Yet so many choose no hope because the lives they live are not so bad, they're making the most of what they have, choosing purposely no hope.
God's ways are not our ways.
God's thoughts are not our thoughts.
God's thoughts and ways are so much higher than we can ever begin to fully comprehend, but… what He will allow us to comprehend should we choose to comprehend, is hope.
We can cling to our unbelief. We can cling to our desperation to comprehend. We can rail accusation after accusation against God if we choose to, He won't stop us. We can have no hope at all if that is what we want.
Or
We can choose to accept that we must have faith and faith alone.
Faith is…the substance of things- HOPED FOR, the evidence of things -UNSEEN.
We should STOP questioning God and His ways, His thoughts, if we truly want to walk by FAITH, live by FAITH, be among the FAITH that is found upon earth when Christ returns.
Luk_18:8 … when the Son of man cometh, will he find faith on the earth?
You may not have a lion to face, a gas chamber to fear, a stake to be tied to, but you will have to face the fears of the living, the fears of the dying, the fears that would cause a heart to fail, the fears of unanswered questions, the fears of perhaps being ultimately wrong, the fears that come in all kinds of shapes and sizes they are out there in one size fits all sizes too because fear isn't limited to size or shape at all- it'll molded right to you and your particular terrors.
If none of this applies to you because your faith is so strong- praise God!
His remnant will keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ!
If none of this applies to you maybe you know someone it does apply to, pray for them.
We must have faith and know God says--For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Shhh…stop, His ways are so much higher than ours!
Shhh…stop, His thoughts are so much higher than ours!
Believe.
Faith.
Hope.
Faith let them sing.
Will faith let us sing?
Faith.
All through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, now and forever!!!!!!! Amen!
Why do we imagine we can understand all the ways of God? Why?
Why do people refuse to believe God because they don't understand why He doesn't help them in their lives? Why do people equate God's goodness with His keeping their lives free of too much pain? How can the people of a country who have no running water but must walk long distances to get some, who live with diseases that easily beset them, who are so poor they are barely living and are walking skeletons-- how can they PRAISE GOD? They do.
How could those locked in concentration camps where the furnaces burned body after body, still believe in God when they were simply waiting their turn in the furnace? There may have been death by gas in their future, or starvation, or illness bring them to the furnace, but they still died with God's love on their lips, how?!
When bound to a wooden post and you see the metal gates rise up releasing ferocious starving lions running right towards you, how could you sing, Jesus in that moment?! They sang!
When standing on the very top of a pile of wood, tied to a stake and you smell the smoke rising up from beneath you and you know what's coming, and you pray, oh, how you pray thanking God, loving God, asking God to forgive those who are doing this horrible thing to you, HOW!? But they did! THEY DID!
And we cry out there is no God because our lives are miserable in so many ways.
The majority of us are not living the lives of the rich. The majority of us are not living the lives of the carefree. The majority of us are clueless about what the future holds.
And even those who aren't living life on the edge of the precipice of constant unending uncertainty, they find reasons to question God because they can't quite comprehend Him. They truly believe they should be allowed to comprehend God. They want all the answers to all the questions, they feel like they are owed those answers simply because they have the questions. They believe they shouldn't be allowed to have any questions that can't be answered and because they are allowed to have these questions without answers they flail about blaming God, telling God He screwed up and they'd have done it differently, they wouldn't let anyone have a single unanswered question about all of life, all the why this was allowed, why that wasn't allowed. Why did you do this thing, God?! Why didn't you do that thing, God?! I don't understand how you could be so cruel as to let that happen! Why did you allow evil at all?! Why did you? Why? Why, should I believe in a God who allows horrors to exist? Why should I try to even comprehend in the slightest, you are just too awful, it's all your fault, God. There just can't even really be a God because to believe in such a God, why, it'd make me the fool.
So much awfulness in so many ways and man thinks they should be allowed to understand, man thinks they have the capacity to comprehend it all.
As the last breath is taken from a diseased one's mouth; as the heart bursts in the chest of the one starved; as organs shut down; as the flames send shockwaves of agony to a screaming mouth and it stops as unconsciousness takes over; as….
…any horrific death is lived until there is life no more… there is an end. No death is horror free, not even the most peaceful because it leaves behind the world without that life. Death is horror. The wreckage of death makes death horrific even if the process of dying isn't awful, but oh, sometimes it is so awful. However…
…what would have been truly evil would have been no end to the dying process, no end at all, that is evil.
Horrific deaths- through process or not- all have an end. And the wreckage of death remains reminding us all it exists even for us, but our hope is there because there is an end, a stopping of the agonies for those dying.
What would have been truly diabolical would have been no end, no hope after the end.
Yet so many choose no hope because the lives they live are not so bad, they're making the most of what they have, choosing purposely no hope.
God's ways are not our ways.
God's thoughts are not our thoughts.
God's thoughts and ways are so much higher than we can ever begin to fully comprehend, but… what He will allow us to comprehend should we choose to comprehend, is hope.
We can cling to our unbelief. We can cling to our desperation to comprehend. We can rail accusation after accusation against God if we choose to, He won't stop us. We can have no hope at all if that is what we want.
Or
We can choose to accept that we must have faith and faith alone.
Faith is…the substance of things- HOPED FOR, the evidence of things -UNSEEN.
We should STOP questioning God and His ways, His thoughts, if we truly want to walk by FAITH, live by FAITH, be among the FAITH that is found upon earth when Christ returns.
Luk_18:8 … when the Son of man cometh, will he find faith on the earth?
You may not have a lion to face, a gas chamber to fear, a stake to be tied to, but you will have to face the fears of the living, the fears of the dying, the fears that would cause a heart to fail, the fears of unanswered questions, the fears of perhaps being ultimately wrong, the fears that come in all kinds of shapes and sizes they are out there in one size fits all sizes too because fear isn't limited to size or shape at all- it'll molded right to you and your particular terrors.
If none of this applies to you because your faith is so strong- praise God!
His remnant will keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ!
If none of this applies to you maybe you know someone it does apply to, pray for them.
We must have faith and know God says--For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Shhh…stop, His ways are so much higher than ours!
Shhh…stop, His thoughts are so much higher than ours!
Believe.
Faith.
Hope.
Faith let them sing.
Will faith let us sing?
Faith.
All through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, now and forever!!!!!!! Amen!