Thank you for the application question on Isaiah 55:8, “When reading Isaiah 55:8, do you somehow feel left out? How can you get to a better way of doing things?”
As I read Isaiah 55:8–9, I can glad that God has a greater perspective of life. He sees the overall picture while I am looking at my one frame of life.
The text says this, ““For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (NIV).
The solutions that I come up in life are at times good, bad, and ugly. I may think at that moment my analysis of the situation is very good, but in reality, it is totally inadequate. I am seeing life from my narrow perspective. I may not have fully understood the other person’s motive or actions. I may have misjudged that person or their situation. It looks right to me, but I may be dead wrong.
It is comforting for me that God sees the bigger picture of my life and how this one trial or incident in my life will have a greater effect on myself or on others. Paul says that God is at work in us and through us to accomplish his will (Phil 1:6, 2:12–13).
This requires that I must stop my own analysis, running around, and be still before the Lord. It is to ask the Spirit of God to give me insight as to His will for life and pray for the strength to walk in and through it. It is not trusting in my own understanding but committing everything to him (Prov. 3:5). It is not trying to be the channel maker but rather be the channel. It’s entrusting one’s life to God, believing that all things will work out for good, not necessarily that they are good, to those who loved him (Rom. 8:28–29).
Summary: One day we will see the bigger picture of God and our small part in it. It will all make sense when God reveals the whole picture to us.
-Kingston