Isaiah 55:8-9
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
This is a verse we believe on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Other days of the week, we lean toward thinking God is pretty much just like us or we are just a little smarter than God. Our worst days are the ones when we think we’re smarter than God. We do clever things we shouldn’t do while telling ourselves that God won’t notice. Then we realize that he did notice and we fear that he will react as we would. That is, we fear that he will reject or abandon us. And if our sin has serious consequences (as it so often does), we can become even more convinced that God is mainly interested in punishment and vengeance. It’s just then that this verse shows us the surpassing mystery of God. For the truth is, he is not a God of tit-for-tat or mere karmic force: he is a God who loves us. And such is his generosity to us that even our sins are treated with more than mere justice. They become occasions of redemption. This is how it is that God can take the worst thing we’ve ever done — the crucifixion of his Son — and make it the occasion of the greatest gift he ever gave: eternal life. So offer him your sins and your sincere repentance. He can turn even our flaws into gold.
