Higher Ways
Driving to work, I found myself in a playful race with a small plane on a runway paralleling my road. Out of the blocks, it was me all the way at a speedy 60 mph. I thought I’d take the prize for sure.
Our paths weren’t visible for 15 seconds while we passed a row of airplane hangers. I emerged fully expecting to still be in a comfy lead but found the plane ahead and creeping away fast. By the time it lifted off the runway, it was 20 car lengths ahead. Then, it got horribly discouraging.
The plane proceeded to completely wipe me out. It effortlessly pulled up higher and kept easily increasing in speed. Then it banked left, crossed dozens of roads and stoplights and thousands of cars caught in traffic–with no stress at all. It was operating on a higher level than I could reach.
As it soared off to who knows where I got a message from a better place. Like with the plane, God’s ways are much higher and better than ours. Like the plane, they conquer all resistance.
The plane lifted altogether out of the ordinary. I was left with four wheels grinding the concrete being worn out by the friction with the hot road. The plane was up in a whole different place cutting through everything that opposed it effortlessly.
God’s ways are higher in a similar way.
Martha was locked into her own ideas of how to serve the infinite God. Jesus sat and rested and was personal, friendly, and warm. Martha was impersonal–not very friendly and sizably cold as she did her self-appointed service. Jesus was in touch with both the Father and Mary. Martha was out of touch with both God and man.
Jesus–and Mary–were following the will of the Father. Martha, who was convinced she was spot on, was entirely on the wrong train.
It’s interesting that it was with Mary and Martha that a powerful further out direction of the Father came. Jesus– who developed the personal both with His Father and with the others in the world of Mary and Martha– would later simply speak three God the Father-directed words. His “Lazarus come forth” brought the greatest personal miracle of all time. It arguably could have been the greatest miracle of all time. Lazarus was molecularly reconstructed.
What happened in the little world of Mary and Martha shook the world. It gave powerful proof which authenticated the Messiah and led the way to the salvation of many. And the event has been told to billions. The spiritual fruit and the repercussions of that move of the invisible God are incalculable.
God tells us that His ways are higher than ours. Mary caught God’s whispers and did the good part, the best part. Martha, with all her striving, didn’t.
Do we hear God’s whispers bending us toward the joys of a relationship with Himself and others? “Is “my spirit within me seeks You diligently” a too-infrequent thing. Do we “behold God to see His power and glory and the beauty of the Lord”? Do we rejoice with those who rejoice? Is there anyone in our heart that God fills us with joy in our every prayer for them?
Or are we too hurried, like Martha, doing all the next things we deem important but really aren’t at all.
Jesus said that Mary chose the good part. That’s earthshaking in its ramifications.
This little incident in their lives on a very ordinary day frequently slows me to a skidding halt. Upon examining things around me, I find myself wide-eyed, astonished that I almost missed some really important things. I slow down and re-tune to the Living God, and beautiful, unexpected things happen with Him and with others with God stamped all over them. I end up smiling crazy big as I drift off to sleep those nights, marveling at the sweet things the Lord has done.
As one book title say it so well; Work hard to ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. More than you could ever imagine rests on it.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts higher than your thoughts" – Isaiah 55:1,2
