My ways, My thoughts, My words
Isaiah 55:8-11
Isaiah might be one of the great geniuses of history. He did not take the trouble to define and systematize all he knew, but his observations were way ahead of their time. It is easy to overlook, since many of the scientific ideas we take for granted have been around for centuries or at least decades. But that is all, they have not been around for millennia.
In the late 1700s when Antoine Lavoisier discussed the principles of evaporation in his landmark book, The Elements of Chemistry, he did not take credit for discovery of the process. He described the process, but discussed it as a law of nature, something already known. Isaiah knew it. He knew it on such a grand scale that in a very concise way describes several scientific ideas:
Levoisier’s description of evaporation: Isaiah shows that water returns to the heavens where it prepares to come to earth again.
Newton’s law of conservation: Isaiah showed how the use of water does not destroy it, but eventually, after accomplishing a complex purpose, recycles it back into the clouds.
Clapham’s conception of the ecosystem: Isaiah shows how the physics and chemistry of water are related to plant biology and the symbiosis of the food chain.
We might think that everyone knows these things, but the exact interaction of these different processes were not yet known to everyone in 800 BC. That’s why so many people worshiped gods of water and sky and fertility. Isaiah believed in one God who was in charge of all these processes, but he also saw them as natural predictable systems that had their own mechanics and laws.
Not only is Isaiah a scientific thinker ahead of his time, but he is a poet comparable to the greatest poets in history. He is not content to say that God’s word is like the rain, He goes to great lengths to show what he means by this statement. His use of extended metaphor in this passage rivals Homer’s who was using similar devices in The Illiad and The Odyssey around the same time in Greece.
I am somewhat biased, but I will go so far to say that Isaiah does it better than Homer.
Isaiah does something even more impressive with this passage. He combines his observations of the natural world with poetry to paint a beautiful picture of weather, crops and food. Then he uses the whole thing to a higher spiritual purpose. He describes the working of God and compares His thinking to ours.
God’s thoughts are not our thoughts
Isaiah is not content to show that they are fundamentally different, but that God’s thoughts are unreachably superior.
Where are the heavens? Can we reach them?
It is difficult to say. If we take an elevator to the top of the Sears tower, or climb a mountain we may find ourselves engulfed by clouds. Have we reached the heavens? We still have a fundamental attachment to the earth. We feel the height we have reached, but we are aware that there is much more above us.
If we fly in an airplane or a jet, we may find ourselves above the clouds with nothing but blue sky above us on an overcast day. Have we reached the heavens? We are sometimes frighteningly aware that we still have a fundamental attachment to the earth. We may not have bedrock under our feet, but gravity still tugs at us and turbulence reminds us that it is a long way down, but we would reach it faster than we want to.
If we fly in the space shuttle or the International Space Station, have we reached the heavens? At 250 miles above the surface of the earth, we are outside the atmosphere completely and the tug of gravity is almost negligible. But even though we have no physical attachment to the earth, we continue to have a dependency. The air we breath and all the food and water we take in are gifts from the world below. If we tried to sever our ties with the ground, we would not fall to our death, but it would come just as certainly.
What about the Apollo astronauts, did they reach the heavens? Going 100 times further than the space shuttle flies, they went higher than any human has ever gone. Only to reach another place where they stood on the solid ground and looked up into the heavens.
How high are the heavens?
Isaiah talks about them in terms of the clouds, at his time as unreachable to most as the ISS is to us. It is his point of comparison.
We may think at times that our thoughts are lofty.
We may induce ourselves to think deeply and intensely about a subject.
We may be subject to moments of profound insight when we see things more clearly than we have before
We may have read or heard things from wise people that give us ideas to live by, truths that go beyond our personal, momentary circumstances
The wisest among us may formulate timeless ideas that people for generations to come will applaud
But God’s thoughts are higher.
• When we have thought as deeply as we can think
• When we have seen clearly as we can see
• When we have reached higher than we ever have before
God is waiting above us still, with thoughts that put our best ideas into eternal perspective, in light of a power that is beyond our control or even our comprehension.
God’s ways are not our ways. Not only are they fundamentally different, they are qualitatively better. They are unreachably higher.
From this vantage, God speaks
Water comes from the clouds. Isaiah was certainly familiar with waterways and irrigation, but in his image, the ultimate source of water is the clouds, the heavens, that place where God’s thoughts and ways live so far above our own.
And from His vantage point He blesses us with His words.
The picture Isaiah paints is a gentle rain, one that nourishes, not one that comes in a torrent and washes away. He even speaks of a magnificent snow. I think he uses the image of snow for a reason. The beauty and the complexity of snow as a water source are above our capacity. If we as humans were in a position to water the earth, would we come up with snow has a way to do it? Could we even imagine it?
God’s words are not only practical, they are beautiful and inspiring. They are simple as water and complex as a snow flake. And from that high place where the clouds float light and weightless above us, the nourishing rain and snow falls to us and feeds the crops and feeds our children.
In the same way, from that high place where the thoughts of God form His habits and His actions, He speaks. His words come to us like the refreshing rain.
His words come with a purpose
Darwin proposed that every living thing adapts to its environment. On a limited scale, this is true. But Isaiah is saying that in the ultimate sense, the opposite is true. He is saying that God created plants that needed water, so He sends rain. He adapts the environment to the needs of His living creation.
When He sends rain it feeds the plants, which in turn feed us. It comes and grows the plants, producing flowers and seeds and grain. Once the water has accomplished multiple purposes, it returns to the heavens to be recycled and sent again when it is needed.
In the same way, we are the living people of God. From the place of His high thought, He sends His words. And He sends them with a purpose.
We are mistaken to think that the Bible is just a book. It is so much more. It is the Word of God that has been sent for a reason.
What is more, just as it is natural and inevitable that water will nourish plants, God’s word will do what He sent it to do.
What is the purpose of God’s word?
To give life
We are most familiar with this idea because Jesus repeated it many years later. Moses said it first:
He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
(Deuteronomy 8:3 TNIV)
It is not merely food that gives us life. It is God’s word. When He speaks, life flourishes. When He is silent, we dry up. When our lives seem empty and powerless, when we seem dry, when we want something and cannot decide what it is, God’s word was given to us to fill the void.
It gives guidance
Moral direction is one of the most difficult challenges we face. We look, but do not easily find, how to decide what to do in different situations. God gives us His word to take some of the guess work out:
Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
(Deuteronomy 30:11-14 TNIV)
Unlike many religions, God does not leave us guessing. He does not decide His will and then make us figure it out for ourselves. He gives it to us, written and accessible. Sent to us like a spring shower that fills our wells and our pitchers so we can go back to it again and again.
To teach us about Himself
God is infinite and therefore mysterious. There are things about Him we will never know, because we will never have the capacity for infinite knowledge.
However, the fact that we cannot know everything does not mean that what we do know cannot be true. God sends His word so that, in as much as we are able, we can know Him.
The LORD continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word. (1 Samuel 3:21 TNIV)
God does not just reveal ideas through His word, He reveals Himself.
To show Himself faithful
God does not operate in a vacuum. He does not expect us to trust Him for no good reason. His word is given so that we can observe for ourselves that it is true. As we read what He has promised and predicted, we can measure for ourselves whether or not He is honest and trustworthy.
"Praise be to the LORD, who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses. (1 Kings 8:56 TNIV)
God holds it as a point of honor that He keeps His promises. He can be trusted.
Rest in Hope, by doing two things
Look around the chapter. All through it there are promises.
• The promise of life
• To satisfy your spiritual hunger and thirst
• To make you a witness of God to many people as David was
• To have mercy when you have sinned
• To bless your life with joy, peace and beauty
All the purposes of God’s word are represented here. All we have to do to see these purposes personally affecting our lives.
Read and meditate on it
The only way that we can deeply, instinctively trust anything is to make it a part of our lives. If we neglect anything, our parents, our children, our brothers and sisters, we will cease to understand them and we will have less confidence in trusting them.
It is the same way with God’s word. When we are separated from it for too long or treat it too casually, we trust it less. Reading it often, meditating on it deeply, memorizing it helps us to maintain an immediate and constant familiarity with the thoughts of God.
Apply it
James makes it clear that it is not enough to read and know the word, we must do it. Obeying the word is our expression of trust. If God values honesty and He says so, we express trust in His word when we are honest.
What we do not do, we do not believe.
This is the point behind your daily Bible reading, meditation and devotions. It is not an exercise in how much you know, but in how what you do adapts to what God values.
