What do you mean, “God’s ways are higher?”

10 min. to read if you read all the footnotes, too.

Bad things happen. When they do, not only is it painful, often it’s also confusing. Questions nag. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? The questions become more pointed for those who believe God intervenes on behalf of good people. In fact, the more a person believes that God controls every single aspect of existence, the more painful bad things become. Random tragedy is terrible, but we can come around to accept it’s just part of life. But tragedy that was appointed to happen to you by a God that loves you? Then questions shift from “Why did this happen?” to “Why would God do this to me?!”¹Theology Nerd Sidetrack: These questions get at a theological discussion of God’s sovereignty. Scripture claims that God has all authority over creation and the power to exercise that authority. But the observation of human history suggests that, if this is true, there are either limits to how God exercises this power, or God has elected deeply horrific things to happen. (Theologians bleakly refer to this as “the problem of Evil.”) Different theological streams attempt to resolve this in various ways. In simpler terms, the discussion comes down to two questions. Is God in control? And if so, what does that control look like?

The answer varies. Some, such as those in the Reformed or Calvinist tradition, believe God controls everything that happens, including all human choices and every person’s ultimate destiny. This view is called Meticulous Sovereignty or Divine Determinism. It’s the foundation for Calvinism’s Double Predestination, which holds that God creates some people who are destined for salvation, and others who are destined for eternal damnation.

Other groups, like the Methodists, most Anglicans, and many Baptists and Pentecostals, hold that while God is sovereign and offers grace to all, God allows humans to have genuine freedom to accept or reject this grace. This is called Arminianism. More recent theological discussions have played with the idea that God’s control is limited, either by God’s free agency, through the constraints of love, or for other reasons. Open and Relational theology is one of the modern streams playing with this view. At the heart of these esoteric-sounding debates is a very practical question: If something terrible happens, is God to blame? If so, what does that mean for the character of God?

Because we don’t like uncertainty or discomfort, when we find ourselves in this painful metaphysical fog, we grope for a spiritual answer. It’s not uncommon that you’ll hear the hurting person (or, more likely, someone trying to offer comfort) say something like, “Well, God’s ways are just higher than ours.” You’ve heard that, right?

When this statement surfaces in the face of tragedy, what’s really being said is something like this: “This bad situation must be God’s will because it’s happened. But with our limited human vision, we just can’t see why this terrible outcome is better from God’s eternal perspective.” If God is real and has infinite knowledge and insight, then, of course, God is smarter than we are. God would have a perspective that stands above and beyond our perception of cause and effect. I understand why this might seem comforting.

Let’s set aside the thorny questions of how and if God intervenes in the material world and any associated questions about prayer. For the moment, let’s focus here: Saying, “God’s ways are higher than our ways,” is an attempt to find a comforting explanation amid uncertainty. “I don’t know why this is happening; God must.” There’s something faithful about this desire — If I’m to be a person who trusts God, trust has to mean something when I’m in the middle of pain.

The trouble with this path of comfort is that it has been used to shut down fair questions. When a hurting mother cries out in her pain, asking why her child died from a genetic disease, a well-meaning Christian who reminds her that “God’s ways are higher than ours” is really telling that mother to stop crying. She is told her grief amounts to faithlessness. Not only is this disrespectful to the mother and her love, but it also paints God as a monster. The well-meaning person offering this comfort is essentially telling this mother, “God has a reason for your child to die. You don’t understand that now, but one day you will.” Gross.

Which ways are higher?

There’s another problem with this use of the idea that “God’s ways are higher than our ways.” It’s a bad reading of the scripture. At first glance, this interpretation seems obvious, but it’s wrong. I propose that the familiar “plain reading of the text” actually obscures something far more comforting than the idea that God can see the reason behind bad things. Let’s take a look together.

“God’s ways are higher than our ways” is a simplification of Isaiah 55:1-9. In this chapter of Isaiah, the ancient prophet, speaking on behalf of God, offers an invitation to a life of abundance and joy. The promise includes an everlasting covenant that will satisfy the heart with a deep and abiding connection with God. The prophet specifically calls out to those who feel alienated from God. “Seek the Lord while he may be found.” There is an urgency to this invitation. You don’t want to end up with a heart that no longer seeks God.

This is where we come to the famous passage: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor 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.” There it is, right? God does things that are hard for us to understand, so when we face painful and challenging uncertainty, trust that God knows what God is doing. Except that’s not what that passage says at all.

It’s certainly true that God’s thoughts and ways exceed human comprehension, but this verse isn’t a hymn to God’s foresight and omniscience. The passage serves as both a warning and an invitation. It’s a warning to those who are sliding into cynicism because of the pain they’ve been through.²See Isaiah 54 for more on who the prophet is speaking to. It’s a warning to those who are getting lost in shame. It’s an invitation to those who are desperate for something more.³Isaiah 55:1-2. Finally, and most crucially, it’s an invitation to those who are choosing wicked ways and unrighteousness thoughts. The warning is that it’s not too late to turn around. The invitation is that, contrary to what you might expect, God is standing by to offer mercy and pardon.⁴Isaiah 55:7.

This is where we finally arrive at those thoughts of God’s, so far above and beyond ours. The prophet is not telling the wounded that God ordained their injury and that they should just trust God’s mysterious ways. The prophet is not arguing that sometimes, for reasons measly humans cannot understand, God allows disease, war, or famine. Not at all! The prophet is explicitly stating that what surpasses all human comprehension is God’s mercy and willingness to pardon.

Higher ways express a higher heart.

We love a good story about mercy and pardon. Seeing a terrible person come to their senses, confess their error, and make things right is usually what we hope will happen. But there is this part of us—this very reasonable, human part of us—that wants to ensure that before forgiveness is given, the criminal deserves it. Have they owned up? Have they changed? That’s the way we envision pardon and mercy working, especially when the perpetrator is someone who hurt us.

However, in this passage, the prophet invites us to look beyond the scope of common-sense mercy and well-deserved forgiveness. Unlike us, God stands ready to “abundantly pardon.” God’s mercy flows down indiscriminately like rain and snow.⁵Isaiah 55:10. And like rain and snow, God’s mercy nourishes parched hearts and results in a bloom of growth that ultimately results in joy and peace.⁶Isaiah 55:12. This is what we can’t easily conceive. Our pardon rests on merit. Our mercy flows to the most qualified. Not so with God. Our hearts are small, stingy, and self-protective; God’s heart overflows with love that forgives and transforms.

It’s an easy dodge to throw up our hands and say, “Welp, God’s ways are just beyond us. How are we gonna understand God?” But that ignores something crucial. We do know something about God, not because of our human understanding, but because of God’s revelation in Jesus. When John’s Gospel says, “No one has seen the Father,” the text agrees with the common-sense theology that God is beyond human perception and understanding, but the verse doesn’t end there. It goes on to say, “…except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.“⁷John 6:46. So, while it makes perfect philosophical sense to say that God’s ways are incomprehensible to us, it would not be an accurate statement for followers of Jesus.

Jesus was undoubtedly familiar with the passage in Isaiah 55. That ancient prophecy might have even been in his mind when he said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” This opens up quite a different reading of Isaiah 55. The ways and thoughts of God that are so high and beyond us are something very specific: God’s extravagant mercy and abundant pardon. God pardons in ways that go beyond our understanding. God has mercy that goes far beyond our own limited, self-protective expectations of mercy.

So, when can we use these words?

Consider what this means for our use of Isaiah’s words. It is wildly inappropriate to use these words to tell a hurting person that they should just trust that God is up to something good in their trauma. It is manipulative to use these words to justify exclusionary and marginalizing practices that violate compassion on the basis that God’s rules are just beyond our understanding. It is a disrespectful shortcut to use these words to shut down the good-faith efforts of a person to grow in the knowledge of God. So, where then could these words be used with integrity?

When speaking to the cynical heart on the edge of checking out. When trying to break through the armor of shame a person wears. When someone feels trapped in a destructive life⁸What Isaiah might call wicked ways and unrighteous thoughts. When someone thinks that their background is too dark, too heinous, too destructive for them ever again to find hope, or love, or belonging. In situations like these, we would be right to say, “Friend, God’s ways are higher than you can imagine. God’s pardon is not the kind of transactional forgiveness you’ve come to expect. God’s mercy flagrantly disregards expected boundaries. The thing about God that’s almost impossible to conceive is how good God is. And right now, in the depth of your certainty that you are not enough, God’s mercy extends to you.”

• 1
  Theology Nerd Sidetrack: These questions get at a theological discussion of God’s sovereignty. Scripture claims that God has all authority over creation and the power to exercise that authority. But the observation of human history suggests that, if this is true, there are either limits to how God exercises this power, or God has elected deeply horrific things to happen. (Theologians bleakly refer to this as “the problem of Evil.”) Different theological streams attempt to resolve this in various ways. In simpler terms, the discussion comes down to two questions. Is God in control? And if so, what does that control look like?
  
  

  The answer varies. Some, such as those in the Reformed or Calvinist tradition, believe God controls everything that happens, including all human choices and every person’s ultimate destiny. This view is called Meticulous Sovereignty or Divine Determinism. It’s the foundation for Calvinism’s Double Predestination, which holds that God creates some people who are destined for salvation, and others who are destined for eternal damnation.
  
  

  Other groups, like the Methodists, most Anglicans, and many Baptists and Pentecostals, hold that while God is sovereign and offers grace to all, God allows humans to have genuine freedom to accept or reject this grace. This is called Arminianism. More recent theological discussions have played with the idea that God’s control is limited, either by God’s free agency, through the constraints of love, or for other reasons. Open and Relational theology is one of the modern streams playing with this view. At the heart of these esoteric-sounding debates is a very practical question: If something terrible happens, is God to blame? If so, what does that mean for the character of God?

• 2
  See Isaiah 54 for more on who the prophet is speaking to.
• 3
  Isaiah 55:1-2.
• 4
  Isaiah 55:7.
• 5
  Isaiah 55:10.
• 6
  Isaiah 55:12.
• 7
  John 6:46.
• 8
  What Isaiah might call wicked ways and unrighteous thoughts