When God’s Ways Tower Above Ours

Learning to Trust the Mind and Purposes of God When Life Makes No Sense

Scripture Reference: – Isaiah 55:8–9

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Introduction – When God’s Wisdom Collides With Ours

The God Who Thinks Beyond the Prison Yard

Isaiah 55:8–9 stands as one of the most humbling, unsettling, and ultimately comforting declarations God has ever spoken to humanity:

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,”

These words were not spoken into calm circumstances, nor were they given to people enjoying ease, clarity, or control. They were proclaimed into confusion, loss, exile, and shattered expectations. That context matters deeply—especially for men living in prison cells, wrestling with unanswered prayers, broken pasts, and futures that feel painfully uncertain.

Isaiah 55 is not a chapter written for comfortable believers. It is a chapter for wounded souls, for thirsty men, for people who have learned—often the hard way—that human wisdom collapses under the weight of suffering.

The Prophet and His Times

Isaiah ministered during one of the most turbulent periods in Israel’s history. His prophetic ministry spanned decades, crossing the reigns of multiple kings and the moral collapse of Judah. He witnessed spiritual rebellion, political corruption, looming invasion, and the slow unraveling of a nation that had once walked closely with God.

By the time we reach Isaiah 55, the shadow of Babylonian exile looms large. Jerusalem would be destroyed. The temple would be burned. The people of God would be chained, marched away, and scattered into a foreign land. Everything that gave them identity—land, worship, king, freedom—would be stripped away.

From a human perspective, none of it made sense.

The people had God’s promises. They had His covenant. They had His law. And yet they were facing judgment, displacement, and suffering on a massive scale. Many surely asked, “If God loves us, why this? If we are His people, how could this happen?”

It is into that storm of confusion that Isaiah 55 speaks.

Grace Before Explanation

One of the most striking features of Isaiah 55 is that God offers grace before He offers explanation.

The chapter opens not with rebuke, but with invitation:

“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters…” (Isaiah 55:1)

God calls hungry, broke, thirsty sinners to come and receive freely. He offers life, mercy, pardon, and restoration before addressing the deep philosophical problem of why things unfolded the way they did.

Only after extending grace does God say, in essence:

You will not always understand Me—but you can trust Me.

Isaiah 55:8–9 is not God dismissing human pain. It is God reframing reality. He is reminding His people that their limited vantage point cannot see the whole picture.

Prison teaches this lesson brutally well.

Men sit in cells replaying decisions, losses, injustices, sentences, and unanswered prayers. Questions echo late at night:

Why did God allow this? Why didn’t He stop me? Why won’t He fix this now? Why does deliverance feel so far away?

Isaiah 55 does not offer shallow clichés. It offers something sturdier:

A God whose wisdom towers far above human reasoning, yet whose mercy stoops low enough to meet broken men where they are.

A Verse for Men Who Have Run Out of Answers

Charles Spurgeon once said,

“God is too good to be unkind, and too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.”

That is the spirit of Isaiah 55:8–9.

These verses do not call us to understand God fully. They call us to humble ourselves before Him, to surrender our demand for control, and to rest in the truth that His purposes are not only higher—but better.

For prisoners especially, this passage cuts deep. Prison strips away illusions of control. It exposes the limits of human planning. It confronts men with the painful truth that their ways—however justified they once seemed—led them here.

And yet, astonishingly, Isaiah 55 declares that God is not finished with people whose lives appear ruined.

His thoughts are higher. His plans stretch beyond iron bars, beyond courtrooms, beyond lost years. The same God who permitted exile also promised restoration. The same God who disciplines also redeems.

Why This Verse Matters So Much

Isaiah 55:8–9 teaches us that:

• God is not obligated to explain Himself to us

• Our inability to understand Him does not mean He has abandoned us

• Divine wisdom often works in ways that feel backward, painful, and delayed

• Trust, not comprehension, is the soil where faith grows strongest

John Calvin wrote that when God speaks of His higher ways, He is not mocking us—but calling us to reverent submission, reminding us that faith begins where human reasoning ends.

This verse is not meant to silence questions harshly. It is meant to quiet restless hearts lovingly.

For men in prison, Isaiah 55:8–9 becomes a lifeline:

God sees what you cannot. God is doing what you cannot fathom. God is working toward ends you cannot yet imagine. 

Main point 1 – God’s thoughts expose the limits of human wisdom

Isaiah 55:8 begins with a confrontation—not an accusation, but a revelation: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts.”With these words, God lovingly but firmly exposes a truth humanity resists more than almost any other: we are not as wise as we think we are.

Human wisdom is shaped by immediacy. We judge situations by what we can see, feel, touch, and measure in the present moment. We interpret reality through pain, loss, fear, regret, and desire. In prison, this limitation becomes even more pronounced. The environment itself narrows perspective—walls, schedules, sentences, routines—all reinforce the sense that this is the full story. But God declares that what we see is never the whole picture.

The wisdom of man tends to ask, “What works now?”

The wisdom of God asks, “What will last forever?”

This is where human reasoning repeatedly fails. We often call something “good” because it brings temporary relief, and we label something “evil” because it brings pain. But Scripture teaches us that pain can be a servant of grace, and comfort can be a tool of destruction. Proverbs 14:12 reminds us, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Human thoughts may feel logical, justified, even moral—yet still lead to ruin.

The lives of Scripture’s greatest saints bear this out. Joseph could not have imagined that betrayal, slavery, and prison would be the pathway to deliverance and authority. From the dungeon, God’s purposes would have looked not merely hidden, but absent. Yet later Joseph would say, “Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Genesis 50:20). God’s thoughts had been operating on a level Joseph could not perceive at the time.

Martin Luther observed that God often works sub contrario—under the opposite appearance. What looks like defeat is victory. What feels like abandonment is preparation. What seems like delay is divine precision.

For incarcerated believers, this truth cuts both ways. Many are haunted by the thought, “If only I had thought differently.” And that is often true—human thinking, left unchecked, leads to devastating consequences. But Isaiah 55:8 also offers hope: God’s thoughts are not imprisoned by our past mistakes. His wisdom is not derailed by our foolishness. He can overrule, redirect, and redeem even the worst decisions.

Charles Spurgeon once said,

“God’s thoughts are not merely higher than ours in degree, but different in kind.”

That distinction matters. God does not simply think better thoughts; He thinks eternal thoughts. Where we see years, He sees generations. Where we see consequences, He sees transformation. Where we see endings, He sees beginnings.

The call of Isaiah 55:8 is humility. Not humiliation—but humility. It is an invitation to stop demanding that God conform His wisdom to our understanding, and instead bow before the truth that His wisdom alone can be trusted when ours has failed.   

Main point 2 – God’s ways often run contrary to human expectations

Isaiah 55:8 continues: “Neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD.” If God’s thoughts challenge our thinking, His ways challenge our instincts.

Human beings are wired to pursue comfort, control, speed, and visibility. We want progress we can measure, answers we can explain, and outcomes we can manage. God, by contrast, often chooses slow roads, hidden work, painful pruning, and long seasons of waiting.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the doctrine of suffering.

Human logic says: obedience should bring ease. Faithfulness should bring protection. Repentance should bring immediate relief. But Scripture consistently reveals a different pattern. God’s chosen servants frequently walk paths marked by loss, delay, persecution, and hardship.

Consider Moses—called of God, yet spending forty years in obscurity before deliverance ever began. Consider David—anointed king, yet hunted like an animal. Consider Paul—faithful apostle, yet beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked, and eventually executed. Their ways would not have been chosen by human planners. And yet, through those very paths, God accomplished His greatest works.

For men in prison, this truth is especially difficult. Many came to Christ hoping for immediate change—shortened sentences, restored relationships, answered prayers. When those things do not happen, discouragement sets in. The temptation is to conclude that God’s way has failed.

Isaiah 55 insists otherwise.

God’s ways are higher not because they are easier, but because they are wiser. They are shaped not merely by present circumstances, but by eternal purposes. Romans 8:28 does not promise that all things feel good—but that God works them together for good to those who love Him.

John Calvin wrote that believers must learn to “submit their judgment to the secret counsel of God,” trusting that what He ordains is always righteous—even when it is painful.

In prison life, this means recognizing that God may be doing His deepest work where outward change seems minimal. Character, humility, patience, repentance, faith—these are not forged in comfort, but in pressure. God’s way often leads through the valley before it reaches the mountaintop.

Isaiah 55:8 is not an explanation; it is a summons to trust. It tells the suffering believer: You do not need to understand My way in order to walk in it.

Main point 3 – God’s higher ways are governed by mercy, not cruelty

Isaiah 55:9 elevates the truth further: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways.” This comparison is not meant to intimidate—it is meant to reassure.

The vast distance between heaven and earth reminds us that God’s ways are not tainted by human sinfulness, pettiness, or revenge. When we suffer, we often assume cruelty where there is actually mercy at work.

This is a critical correction, especially for prisoners who may view their sentence as divine punishment rather than divine discipline.

Hebrews 12:11 reminds us that “no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” Discipline is not retribution—it is restoration.

God’s higher ways are guided by love, even when that love wounds. Like a surgeon who cuts to heal, God allows pain not to destroy us, but to save us from deeper ruin.

R.C. Sproul once wrote,

“There is not a single molecule in the universe outside the sovereignty of God.”

That includes prison walls, court decisions, lost years, and delayed answers. Nothing arrives in the believer’s life without first passing through the hands of a wise and merciful God.

Isaiah 55, taken as a whole, proves this. The chapter that declares God’s higher ways also declares His readiness to pardon abundantly (Isaiah 55:7). Mercy frames mystery. Grace surrounds sovereignty.

For prisoners burdened with guilt, regret, or bitterness, this truth is liberating. God’s ways are not designed to crush repentant sinners—but to cleanse them, shape them, and ultimately restore them. 

Main point 4 – God calls us to trust, not to total understanding

Isaiah 55:8–9 ultimately presses the believer toward a decisive posture: trust over explanation.

Faith does not mean pretending not to hurt. It does not require suppressing questions. But it does demand surrender—the relinquishing of our insistence on knowing why before we obey who.

The Bible never promises full clarity on this side of eternity. Deuteronomy 29:29 declares, “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us.” God has revealed enough to trust Him, love Him, and follow Him—though not enough to control Him.

For men in prison, this is one of the hardest lessons of all. Control has been stripped away. Autonomy is gone. The temptation is either despair or defiance. Isaiah 55 offers a better way: quiet trust in a God whose wisdom transcends confinement.

Billy Graham once said,

“God has not promised skies always blue, but He has promised strength for the day.”

Trust grows not when answers increase, but when surrender deepens.

Isaiah 55:8–9 calls believers—especially suffering believers—to rest in the character of God when the ways of God feel bewildering. It teaches us that faith matures not by explanation, but by endurance.  

Prison application – Learning to trust God’s higher ways behind bars

Isaiah 55:8–9 may be one of the most necessary passages of Scripture for men and women living behind prison walls. Few environments expose the limits of human control more brutally than incarceration. In prison, plans are overruled daily. Choices are restricted. Time stretches endlessly. The future feels uncertain, and the past often feels unbearable. It is precisely here that God’s declaration—“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways”—lands with both weight and hope.

For many incarcerated believers, the greatest spiritual struggle is not disbelief in God’s existence, but confusion about God’s intentions. Questions rise uninvited:

Why did God allow this?

Why didn’t He stop me before I ruined everything?

Why does repentance not erase consequences?

Why does freedom seem so distant when my heart has changed?

Isaiah 55 does not answer these questions directly—but it addresses the deeper issue beneath them. It calls prisoners to trust who God is, even when they cannot understand what God is doing.

One of the great dangers in prison is spiritual fatalism—the belief that life is effectively over, that usefulness is gone, that God’s best days are behind you. Isaiah 55 shatters that lie. God’s ways are not bound by geography, legal status, or public reputation. The same God who worked in Joseph’s prison cell, Daniel’s captivity, and Paul’s chains is at work today in concrete dorms, lockdown units, and segregation cells.

Prison strips away illusions. Outside, it is easy to confuse activity with faith, success with blessing, and comfort with God’s approval. Inside, those illusions collapse. What remains is the heart—and that is precisely where God does His deepest work.

God’s higher ways mean that your sentence is not the final word on your story. Your conviction does not nullify your calling. Your confinement does not cancel God’s purpose. Scripture repeatedly shows that God often removes external freedom in order to cultivate internal freedom. The world may measure a man by his charges; God measures a man by his repentance, humility, and faith.

Isaiah 55 also confronts another prison struggle: bitterness. When years are lost and relationships broken, resentment can quietly take root—not just toward people, but toward God Himself. The temptation is to conclude that God has been unfair, excessive, or absent. But Isaiah insists that God’s ways, though painful, are never cruel. They are governed by wisdom we cannot yet see and mercy we often fail to recognize.

For the incarcerated believer, this means learning to live faithfully without guarantees. It means obeying God not because circumstances improve, but because He is worthy. It means praying even when answers are delayed, trusting even when outcomes are unclear, and believing that God’s work in you is far more significant than the bars around you.

Prison can become a graveyard of wasted years—or a workshop of redemption. Isaiah 55 urges prisoners to choose the latter. God’s higher ways may include confinement, but they never include abandonment. If you are in Christ, your cell is not evidence of God’s absence; it may be evidence of His refining hand.

Final thought – Resting in the God whose ways are higher

Isaiah 55:8–9 does not merely teach a doctrine—it demands a posture. It calls believers to bow before mystery without surrendering hope. It asks us to trust God not only when His ways make sense, but when they contradict everything we would have chosen for ourselves.

This passage comes at the end of a chapter saturated with grace. Isaiah 55 begins with invitation: “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” It calls sinners to repentance, promises abundant pardon, and assures God’s people that His Word will accomplish its purpose. Only then does God declare that His ways are higher than ours. In other words, God reveals His mercy before He asserts His mystery.

That order matters.

God does not say, “You cannot understand Me, therefore obey blindly.”

He says, “You have tasted My goodness; now trust Me when you cannot see.”

For suffering believers—especially those in prison—this is where faith either deepens or collapses. When circumstances do not change, faith must shift from expectation of outcomes to confidence in character. God’s higher ways are not arbitrary. They flow from His holiness, wisdom, and love.

The Christian life is not about mastering God’s plans, but about submitting to God’s hand. Scripture never promises full explanations in this life. Job never received a detailed account of heavenly councils. Paul never learned why his thorn remained. Even Jesus, in Gethsemane, entrusted Himself to the Father without full relief from suffering.

And yet, not one of them was abandoned.

Isaiah 55 teaches us that God is always doing more than we can see. While we focus on relief, God focuses on redemption. While we want escape, God often seeks transformation. While we demand answers, God offers Himself.

For prisoners, this truth is both sobering and freeing. Sobering—because faith does not guarantee release, restoration, or reversal of consequences. Freeing—because faith anchors the soul in something far stronger than circumstances. God’s higher ways mean that nothing is wasted—not time, not tears, not suffering, not repentance.

One day, every believer will look back and see how perfectly God’s wisdom unfolded. The gaps will close. The questions will quiet. The pain will make sense. Until then, Isaiah 55 calls us to walk by faith, not sight.

To rest in God’s higher ways is not passive resignation—it is active trust. It is choosing obedience over understanding, worship over resentment, and hope over despair. It is believing that the God who governs the heavens is also shaping the hidden places of the heart.

And for those behind bars, this final truth must be held tightly: God’s highest work is often done in the lowest places. 

Reflection questions

1. When you read Isaiah 55:8–9, what specific thoughts or ways of thinking in your own life do you recognize as being in conflict with God’s ways? How has prison exposed those differences?

2. Looking back over your life, where can you now see that your decisions were driven more by emotion, impulse, pride, or fear than by trust in God’s wisdom?

3. Why is it so difficult to trust God’s purposes when suffering feels undeserved or excessive? How does Isaiah 55 challenge the demand for explanations?

4. In what ways has incarceration stripped away false measures of success, identity, or self-worth that once shaped how you saw yourself?

5. How does the truth that God’s ways are “higher” protect you from bitterness, resentment, and despair while serving a sentence that cannot be undone?

6. What does it look like, practically, for you to walk in obedience to God right now—without waiting for circumstances to improve or answers to arrive?

7. If you truly believed that God is accomplishing something eternal in your life through this season, how would it change the way you endure each day behind these walls?

Closing prayer

Father in Heaven,

We come before You as men who have learned, often the hard way, that our ways are not Your ways and our thoughts are not Your thoughts. We confess that we have trusted our own wisdom, followed our own desires, and chosen paths that led to destruction rather than life. We acknowledge today that You are right in all Your judgments and faithful in all Your works.

Lord, for those of us sitting behind prison walls, Your words in Isaiah 55 both humble and comfort us. They humble us because they remind us that we do not see as You see, and that much of our suffering is the fruit of our own rebellion. But they comfort us because they assure us that Your wisdom is higher than our failure, Your mercy greater than our sin, and Your purposes stronger than our chains.

Teach us to trust You when answers are withheld. Teach us to obey You when relief does not come. Teach us to believe that You are working even when we cannot feel it, see it, or understand it. Guard our hearts from bitterness. Deliver us from despair. Keep us from the lie that our lives are over or that we are beyond usefulness in Your kingdom.

Give us grace to endure this season with humility and hope. Shape our character in the hidden places. Refine our faith in the fire of affliction. Make us men who fear You, love Your Word, and walk in obedience regardless of cost.

We place our past in Your mercy, our present in Your hands, and our future in Your sovereign care. We trust that Your ways are perfect, even when they are painful. And we rest in the promise that nothing done in faith is ever wasted in Your sight.

We ask all these things in the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen.

From: Fight the Good Fight of Faith / Life Journal: by Gregg Harris