Wise Thinking
This month we are focused on the importance of wise counsel. This week we pause to remember that all the wisdom in the world cannot touch the wisdom of God. In the book of Acts, Luke records Paul’s distress at the vast amount of idols being worshiped in Athens. When they arrived in Athens on one of their missionary journeys, they found a city where philosophers gathered for discussion and contemplation of various new ideas, theories, and gods. Paul addresses the crowd in Acts 17:24-31.
“The God who made the world and everything in it, who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives life and breath and everything to everyone.
From one man he made every nation of the human race to inhabit the entire earth, determining their set times and the fixed limits of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope around for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
For in him we live and move about and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ So since we are God’s offspring, we should not think the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human skill and imagination.
Therefore, although God has overlooked such times of ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness, by a man whom he designated, having provided proof to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
Acts 17:24-31 NET
In essence, Paul is laying out the basics for the crowd:
God made the world.
God made everything in the world.
God is in control of heaven.
God is in control of earth.
God cannot be contained.
God cannot be controlled.
God cannot be manipulated.
God does not need anything.
God cannot be served.
God is the author of life and the distributor of breath.
God determines when we live.
God determines when we die.
God determines where we live.
God determines how we live.
God is not our creation and his person cannot be fathomed.
God is going to judge the world through Jesus.
God is calling all to repentance.
God got our attention by raising Jesus from the dead.
Much like the philosophers in Athens, we find ourselves in a place where we are greatly impressed with our capacities and abilities. We can send people into space. We can take out a bad organ and replace it. We can store a massive amount of data in a space small enough to be carried in our pocket. We can travel the globe. We can communicate almost instantly with someone on the other side of the world. We can send nanotechnology into the body to record what is happening. Alongside all of these amazing advances, we have started to believe we can reason like God. If you ask, “are you God,” the vast majority of people would say an emphatic, “of course not!” But really, on some level, we have believed the lie that we may not be God, but certainly we can think like him.
What are the implications of believing this lie? If we become convinced that we can think like God, then (perhaps without realizing it) we also believe that the way we think is the way God thinks. If we are unforgiving toward someone, and we think like God, then God must also be unforgiving. If we are stingy and have a scarcity mindset, so must God. If we are angry at or disappointed in God, he must entertain the same feeling toward us. If we stay here in this twisted thinking too long, it gets worse. If we have needs, so does God. And if God has needs, then he can be manipulated. Do you see where this is going?
The Athenians had an altar inscribed, “to an unknown god.” To some extent, this side of heaven, God is unknowable to us. There is a tremendous amount to learn about God: so much that it takes a lifetime! Even better, we can know him personally, as a friend, as our provider, as our protector, and so much more. But we can never fully know God, and how he thinks, because we are the created and he is the creator. His ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
“I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work.” God’s Decree. “For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think. Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth, Doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed. They’ll do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.”
Isaiah 55:8-11 MSG
God doesn’t think the way we think.
God doesn’t work the way we work.
In light of this truth, when we are faced with circumstances we can’t understand or figure out, how should we respond? If we are duped into believing we think like God, we may impugn his character or motives. “God can’t be good, because that is not what I would have done, and I am good.” But if we know who God is and who we are (the essence of true humility) then we will first assume we do not have the full picture, or all of the information, freeing us to trust God, his plans and his ways.
His thoughts, his plans and his ways, and not our own. What can you do today to untangle the way you think about God?