December 26 I Wednesday

Haggai

Revelation 17

“‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”  —Isaiah 55:9

 

Suppose we were on a plane where just before take-off, a passenger with no flight experience walked up to the cockpit and said to the pilot, “I don’t know you, so I don’t know if I can trust you. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to fly this plane myself.” The pilot might respond, “You don’t know the first thing about flying aircraft,” and the passenger might say, “Yes I do. I’ve been reading a book on it.” The passenger could then start listing all sorts of plane flying techniques, but the pilot would finally say, “Sir, as far as flying this aircraft is concerned, your wisdom at its very highest is utter foolishness. Now please return to your seat, relax, and I will get you to your destination safely.”

We would all be relieved when this passenger sat down again, but many of us are as insistent as this passenger when it comes to our lives. We hear phrases in the media like, “You need to take control of your life” and think we should be the pilot. We come up with all sorts of ideas of what is good and right, maybe even saying to God in effect, “I don’t really know You, so I don’t know if I can trust You. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to live my life according to my wisdom.”

Paul’s response echoes the pilot in the story above when he writes, “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25). If I may put this crudely, if God were ever to play the fool, He would still be an awful lot smarter than the smartest, wisest human being. Just as the distance between the heavens and the earth is immeasurable, so too are God’s ways immeasurably higher than our ways. His wisdom is immeasurably greater than our wisdom.

Of course, we must not think of ourselves as purely passengers in life, drifting with the wind and trusting that somehow, somewhere God is doing something. The opening verse is part of a chapter all about seeking, looking, asking and turning our ear. We are to seek after God, acting as He directs with confidence that He who sees the bigger picture will not lead us astray. His piloting sometimes takes us into storms, and we will not always see how our challenges are part of God’s sovereign plan. But as we trust that His wisdom and ways are higher than ours, we will discover that God is faithful as the pilot of our lives.

Prayer: Gracious God, thank You that the burden of piloting my life does not need to fall to me. I trust You as the One whose wisdom is far higher than my own.


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