“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.’ This is the Lord’s declaration. ‘For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Day two of camp is in the books, and it was another fun day of worship with music, Bible study, good food, and tons of games. I even won a round of Gaga Ball. I will likely be paying for my victory for the next few days, but it was satisfying all the same. The theme for the day was the importance of putting God first. We looked at several stories throughout the day of different times and ways people put God’s will and ways first including Jesus Himself. At worship tonight, the camp pastor mentioned another verse that helps us understand why this is something that makes sense to do. Let’s dive into that just a bit more today.

The prophet Isaiah had a lot of bad news to share with his people. They had drifted far from God’s intended path for them to follow, and He intended to do something about it if they didn’t repent and turn around to go the right way. There are several passages that are almost uncomfortable to read, especially in the first part of the book. And knowing that they weren’t intended directly for us doesn’t make things much better.

At about the two-thirds mark, though, the tone makes a decided turn toward hopefulness. God promises restoration for His people after they have experienced the consequences of their sin. This restoration is both near term and far. Some of it the people were going to experience themselves a few generations after Isaiah did his prophetic work. Some of it we are still looking forward to today.

In Isaiah 55, we see promises of blessing and God’s invitation for the people to come to Him to receive it. He wonders openly why the people keep turning toward things that can’t fill them, much less sustain them. From here, He calls the people to seek the Lord while there’s still time. He calls listeners to turn from their sin, to abandon their former way.

The natural question here, though, is why? Why should they give up pursuing what God wants in favor of what they want? That’s still a hauntingly relevant question today. Jesus calls us to take up our crosses and follow Him. That is, we are to be prepared to lose everything. We are to hold lightly all of the things we have, ready to give them up in favor of what He wants at a moment’s notice should He call us to that.

But again, why?

What makes His ways so special? What should make us consider adopting His over ours? This becomes especially true when His ways seem hard or painful while ours appear to be much more convenient and even pleasant.

God gives us one very good reason here in Isaiah 55. He knows better than we do. He’s smarter than we are. He can see what we can’t, and has a plan for it before it even begins to appear on our radar. He thinks on levels we can’t even comprehend. He acts in ways whose rightness we can hardly grasp. This is all what God is saying here in Isaiah.

He clearly establishes two truths for the Israelites—and through them, us—that are absolutely critical to understand if we are going to successfully put God first in our lives. The first is that His ways and our ways are not the same. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.”

Years ago, the popular secularist, Richard Dawkins, wrote a book called The God Delusion. His point was that belief in God is ultimately delusional. The real God delusion, though, is thinking we are anything like God ourselves. God is God, and we are not. That won’t ever change.

But there’s more. The second point that’s critical to understand is that God’s thoughts and ways are not simply different from ours, they are better than ours. And they aren’t just a little bit better either. Look at this: “For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

The way we think about things, and the way we do things, are not the way God thinks about or does them. We think selfishly; He thinks selflessly. We think short-term; He thinks long-term. We operate based on pride; He is all humility, all the time. We do things that are evil and unrighteous; He is perfect in holiness and righteousness. We are often driven by hate; He is love. The differences and contrasts keep piling up from here.

If we want to make a mess of things, doing them our way is the way to go. But if we want them to work, to have lasting worth, and to create blessing for both ourselves and others, God’s ways are the way to go. When we put Him and His ways first—when we seek first God and His righteousness as Jesus put it—things are always going to go better than if we look only to ourselves, what we imagine we know, and what we can do.

If we are going to go higher in our relationship with God, loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, putting Him and His ways first is how that will happen. And while there are certainly big and flashy ways to do that, we are best and wisest to start with the small and seemingly insignificant. Get into the habit of putting God first in the small things consistently, and the big ones will happen naturally.

So then, how can you put Him first today?