Hearing God
Isaiah 55: I don’t think the way you think.
The things I think are vitally important don’t impress God all that much. Like a child who spends all her money on candy and then doesn’t have lunch money, I tend to focus on things that might feel good at the time, but won’t satisfy in the long run. My deafness is so great that even when someone shouts out the truth I can’t hear them. Instead, I hear the cry of materialism and am driven more by mass marketing schemes than by God’s word. All along, I think I ‘m being smart and that, in the long run, if I do it my way I’ll be a contented, happy person. Through Isaiah, the Lord responds that I’d better pay attention and do things his way. God sees things differently than I do. For instance, he sees surrender as the way to victory and death as the way to life. The “higher way” Isaiah mentions isn’t about God being smarter than I am. That’s a given. The higher thoughts of the Lord spoken of here are about how he wants me to live my life. I must retune my ears to hear his voice above the silliness of the crowd and then, in obedience, I am to align my life with his ways rather than those of the world.
Take Away: It takes practice and self-discipline to learn to hear the voice of the Lord over the noise of life.