GOD'S THOUGHTS AND OUR THOUGHTS

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:9).

On earth, the words of a wise man often mean something different from what the hearer understands them to mean. How natural then that the words of God, as He understands them, mean something infinitely higher than we understand at first. We must remember this because it will cause us to search for the fuller meaning of God's Word as He meant it. It will give us confidence to hope that there is fulfillment in life beyond our highest thoughts.

God's Thoughts

God's Word has two meanings. The one is the meaning which originated in the mind of God, making human words the bearer of divine wisdom, power, and love. The other is our partial, distorted understanding of God's Word. Although such words as the love of God, the grace of God, and the power of God may seem very true and real to us, there is still an infinite fullness in the Word which we have not yet known. How strikingly this is put in our text from Isaiah — "As the heavens are higher than the earth." Our faith in this fact is so simple and clear that no one would dream of trying with his little arm to reach the sun or the stars.

And now God says, "My thoughts are higher than your thoughts." Even when the Word has given us God's thoughts and our thoughts have tried to understand them, they still remain as high above our thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth.

All the infinities of God and the eternal world dwell in the Word as the seed of eternal life. And just as the full-grown oak is so mysteriously greater than the acorn from which it sprang, so God's words are but seeds from which God's mighty wonders of grace and power can grow up.

A Childlike Spirit

We should learn to come to the Word as little children. Jesus said, "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes" (Luke 10:21). The prudent and the wise are not necessarily hypocrites or enemies.

There are many of God's own dear children who, by neglecting to cultivate a childlike spirit, have spiritual truth hidden from them and never become spiritual men. "What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. We have received. the spirit which is of God; that we might know" (1 Corinthians 2:11,12). Let a deep sense of our ignorance, a deep distrust of our own power to understand the things of God, influence our Bible study.

God wants to make His Word true in us. The Holy Spirit is already in us to reveal the things of God. In answer to our humble, believing prayer, God will give insight into the mystery of God-our wonderful union and likeness to Christ, His living in us, and our being as He was in this world.

If our hearts thirst, a time may come when, by a special communication of His Spirit, all our yearnings are satisfied. Christ will take possession of the heart, and what was of faith now becomes an experience. Then we realize that, as the heavens are higher than the earth, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.