“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. – Isaiah 55:8-9 (NLT)

Grateful for these words.

I try hard. I am thinking most of you do as well. I try to live a life that God would approve of. I try to make wise decisions. I try to love. I try.

Everything looks like it’s going the way it’s meant to, the way I think it should, and then, it’s not. I think I am trusting God but when I lay down at night, I realize that anxiety and worry have consumed me that day. I think I am loving, and then I get in my car on the roads here, someone cuts me off or opens their car door just before I am passing them, and I am angry in just a few seconds.

Jesus told us, “But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” – Matthew 5:43-48 (NLT)

Rather than try, I am thinking my aim should be to remember. Remember the words of Jesus. Remember to love my enemies. And the way to really do this is to pray for them, my enemies.

Many years ago, someone close to me was having great trouble with a co-worker. This co-worker was going after him in personally-motivated public ways, and the man I knew was extremely upset and at a loss for what to do. A group of us listened to his impassioned story, and all of our subsequent words fell with no constructive advice to help resolve things for him.  As he left, you could feel his great emotional pain. I blurted out Jesus’ words, “You know, (name), Jesus said to pray for your enemies.”

I don’t know if he prayed for the co-worker, and I don’t know if the matter was resolved. I do know that the words of Jesus that I repeated were not on the tip of my tongue that day. The words, I felt, were put there at that moment. A week or so later, someone who was there in the group told his wife that those words of mine, “Pray for your enemies.”, were some of the most profound words he had ever heard. I told her, well, of course, because they weren’t my words. They were Jesus’ words.

Jesus knew that when you pray for someone, you are thinking about their needs and you can’t think about someone’s needs without starting to care about them. To love them.

Thankfully, God is so much smarter than me.

When my daughter was in early grammar school, I met the Mom of one of her classmates. When we began to exchange our thoughts about God, I felt an overwhelming desire to share what I had learned to that point about God. I showed her spiritual books I had read and a particular version of the Bible that had taught me to go deeper when I read God’s Word. She did not seem moved by any of my sharing. Although she didn’t know it, the situation began to wear on me, as I really had felt that I needed to share something with her; I just couldn’t figure out what that was. Finally, I realized I had not prayed about the situation. When I prayed about it, I received an answer I had not expected. Keep praying, but get out of the way. It was God that needed to do the talking, not me. My only responsibility in this situation was to keep praying. I felt peace as I let it go.

The Friday before Mother’s Day that year was Spring-warm, sunny and beautiful, and the school was having a plant sale, and all these plants and flowers were going by us as we stood in the circle in the road near the school. We both wanted to go inside to view the flowers but we were rooted there where we stood. I looked at her and realized that the time had come to share a word with her; I still didn’t know what that word was. I told her, “I have to tell you something.” “Oh, what is it?”, she asked. And then I said simply, “God loves you.” “Oh,” she said, “I know.” “No,” I said, “I don’t think you do.”

At that moment, I heard a soft buzzing and I felt a vibration which began at the top of my head and moved slowly down my body, ending with my feet. It was a curtain of peace which enveloped me. I looked at my friend and told her that those words were meant for her, that I didn’t understand it, but that I had a physical confirmation of peace as I told her, and she said she could see it. She said she was happy for me.

A couple of years later, I was watching a Christian show, the 700 club, and a woman was sharing her testimony. When she had given all her sin and sadness to God, she heard a buzzing and felt a vibration in her body that started in her feet and went up her body, she felt, through the top of her head to heaven itself, and she felt profound peace and joy. When I heard that, I thought that we both had been physically touched by God, His Mercy and Grace going up and down through our bodies.

We can not imagine God’s Love for us. He gave His Son Jesus to suffer for us so that we might reconcile with Him. That kind of Love is something we can’t really understand, but He tells us through His Word and His Sacrifice that His Love is truth.

God’s thoughts are not my thoughts, thank God! God’s ways are not my ways, thank God!

Prayer for today:

Dear God, 

I praise You only, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Thank You for Loving us. Thank you for sharing Your Thoughts and Ways with us through Your Blessed Word. Thank You for the Love You showed us through the Gift of Your Son and the Gift of Your Holy Spirit.

In the Name of Your Blessed Son Jesus I pray,

Amen