Impossible by Faith || Romans 11:33 || Manna for the Mind #57

Welcome to Day 57 of the “Manna for the Mind” devotional series! This series is about taking scripture passages (typically 1-3 verses) and building our understanding of their teachings through their context and connecting scripture. I believe that doing this helps us understand how to be the type of human that God created us to be.

We’ll be looking at Romans 11:33 today. We’ll talk about how difficult it can be to understand God’s decisions and ways of life.

Romans 11:33

33          Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways.

God’s riches, wisdom, and knowledge are great for us. God is our ultimate provider, giving us everything we need in the season we’re walking through. There will be enough of what we need surrounding us and in our grasp. All we need to do is work for it. God provides his source of wisdom through the Holy Spirit and the Bible. The Holy Spirit provides us the strength and guidance to do and go where God is calling us to be so that we can obey his commands. We find the knowledge of how to live in a Christlike way that God created us to live through his teachings. God gives us a spirit of discernment to read His Word, struggle with challenging concepts, stories, and conversations, and allow his teachings to penetrate our hearts and change our ways, words, and thoughts.

With all that said, it feels impossible to comprehend his decisions and the way God does things. We don’t understand why God allows terrible things to happen. We don’t understand why God closed the door to a relationship that has lasted a while for us. We don’t understand why God told us to quit a job we have been at for years. We don’t understand why it took forever for us to graduate college. We don’t understand why starting the business took us a decade. We don’t understand why we are single into our thirties. We don’t understand, and that’s good. If we understood, there would be no need for faith. We would not need to lean on him in the unknown because we figured out what was known. But in this unknown, there is power. Faith exists in the unknown and the impossibilities, empowering us to trust in God’s plan.

Think about these words from Isaiah 55:8-9, focusing on verse 8.

Isaiah 55:8-9

8            “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, “says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.”

9            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.

The people of Israel were foolish to act as if they knew what God was thinking and planning. His knowledge and wisdom are far greater than any human’s. We are foolish to try to fit God into our mold—to make his plans and purposes conform to ours. Instead, we must strive to fit into his plans.

How God thinks is nothing like how we think. We often think in the realms of what we understand, what we know, what we see, and what we can comprehend. God thinks in all those the same ways and also the opposite of all those ways. We often hear the kingdom of God as an “upside-down” kingdom. God’s way of doing things feels upside to what makes sense because we often aren’t spending enough time in God’s teaching to understand what makes the most sense to us. His ways are far beyond anything we can do. Our Savior has done crazy things in our eyes: healing the blind and deaf, bringing people back to life, feeding the multitudes with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, among many other miracles recorded in the Bible. We don’t have that kind of power. We still have the power to do good: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, mentor future generations, and more. Yet God’s ways allow the oceans to part for rescue. God’s ways allow us to part ways with toxic relationships that felt like we’d be forever trapped. Often, we don’t see God’s ways until after he is finished. We must learn from those ways and adapt them to our future actions.

Father God, we thank you for the riches, wisdom, and knowledge you bless us daily. We thank you for the faith it takes to fully trust and give ourselves to you to live in the right relationship with him. Strengthen our faith in God. When things feel impossible, let us have faith in you. When things feel forever, let us have faith in you. It’s in your name, we pray. Amen