Higher Thoughts

 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

          The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for,

“Who has known the mind of the Lord
    so as to instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16)

If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.  It’s embarrassing to read.

I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly different that no one could possibly have the tiniest clue of what He’s like. It’s a waste of time to even contemplate the matter. But Genesis tells us that we are created in His image, which means that there are some points of similarity, and as Romans 1 and other passages point out, He has revealed Himself to us; not completely, but sufficiently to give us a small idea.

I’ve said before that one of the things that reassure me that God is real is the fact that He’s not like us. He is especially not like us in the ways that the other gods are. His thoughts and his ways are higher. But what does “higher” mean? Better is nothing more than a synonym. What does it mean?

When armies move into an area, they tend to like to control the high ground. It lets them see what those around them are doing. So one possibility is that higher thinking is thinking that is sufficiently removed from ours that the one doing the thinking is able to see things we can’t.

In a similar sense, adults are generally considered to have more experience, and to use higher levels of thinking processes than children. This is why it’s ludicrous to allow or to expect children to be able to make decisions about their lives. Likewise, God has more experience, and therefore He’s likely to use higher levels of thinking processes than we do. He created everything. He knows how it’s supposed to work and it’s ludicrous of us to think we are better able to judge than He is.

But if, as the second passage says, we have the mind of Christ, doesn’t that mean any decision we make must be the right decision? The problem with this is that we don’t have only the mind of Christ. We also have our own minds, and we are influenced by the world, so it’s not always wise to trust ourselves in that way. But if we truly desire to do what God is directing us to do, we can ask Him to confirm it to us. And, if we innocently do something we thought to be His will but wasn’t – He’s bigger than our errors and can work things out for good. And as He made clear to me, He can make sure I don’t miss the “exits.”