3 Reasons God’s Ways Are Not Our Ways

– D.L. Moody

His Thoughts

Isaiah the Prophet records God as saying that, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD” (Isaiah 55:8). We are only dust and we cannot comprehend the mind of God, and so “The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations” (Psalm 33:11), but our counsel and our plans fall far short of God’s plans.

His Ways

We cannot fathom the ways of God, even though we can know some things of God, but “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 58:9), so we might think we know God’s ways and chose a certain way, but later we find out (usually the hard way) that God’s ways are “much higher” than our “ways and [His] thoughts” much higher “than [our] thoughts.” Examine your way and the read about God’s ways and you’ll see what I mean.

Our Ways

David would have been the last person on earth we would have sent out against the giant Goliath, but God’s ways are not our ways, and who God chooses would probably not be who we would choose, so indeed, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart’ (Prov 21:2), since “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (Prov 14:12).

Conclusion

We tend to look at people and judge them by sight, and we’re very often wrong, but thankfully, God can see into the human heart and doesn’t see as a man or woman does (1st Sam 16:7). That’s because God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and God ways are not our ways, and frankly, I don’t want my way, because our way may be “the way to death” (Prov 14:12).