For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
– Isaiah 55:8–9
I think about and pray in light of these verses all the time because I know that I am so prone to unwise thoughts, to foolish thoughts, to small thoughts, to nearsighted thoughts, to incomplete thoughts. I could keep going on and on.
Isaiah 55:8–9 teaches us God’s thoughts are high and glorious.
And so to consider how God’s thoughts are the opposite of my thoughts in all those ways, all of his thoughts are wise. All of his thoughts are high and glorious, and all-seeing and all-knowing. And God, with all of these thoughts has said to me and to you, ask for wisdom, ask for knowledge, ask for direction.
And I, with all my perfect thoughts, far-seeing thoughts, wise thoughts, I will make them known to you. I’ll give you the wisdom you need. I’ll give you the knowledge and discernment, direction and discretion you need. I will lead you in my ways. I’m so prone to go my own way. This is what we prayed about in light of Isaiah 53. We’re all prone to go astray, each of us to go to our own way. God’s ways are higher than our ways. They’re better than our ways, and that’s the key.
We think our ways are better, but they’re not. His ways are always, always, always better. So let’s pray according to these verses. God, we confess together right now that all your thoughts and all your ways are better than all our thoughts and all our ways. They’re better. Your thoughts and your ways are all perfect. They’re perfectly wise.
Isaiah 55:8–9 encourages us to ask God to transform our thoughts.
All your thoughts and all your ways, they’re all flowing from your omniscience, your knowledge of all things, your perspective on all things. You see how everything in all the universe and all of history is working together in ways we could never see. God, we praise you as the one whose ways and thoughts alone are perfect. And so we pray, transform our thoughts, transform our ways according to your thoughts and your ways.
God, we pray for wisdom. We pray for knowledge, for discernment, for discretion in our lives. We need your thoughts to guide our thoughts. Please transform our thoughts today, how we view ourselves, how we view others, how we perceive the world around us, how we work. Everything we do today, God, please transform our thoughts to be in line with your thoughts. And God, please keep us from going our own ways.
We confess, oh God, and we are so sorry that we continue to go back to our own ways. God forgive us, have mercy on us, transform our ways so that we might walk in your ways, in obedience to your Word. We praise you for making your ways known to us in your Word. Help us to walk in your ways. Please lead us by your Spirit. Help us not to live according to the flesh today.
Lord, help us not to live, to work, to parent, to do anything today in the flesh. Help us to do it all in the power of your Spirit, under the leadership of your Spirit according to your ways and not our own ways. God, as we think about your ways and your command in our lives, to love you with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength, and love others as ourselves and make disciples the nations, God, help us to walk in these ways today so that people around us might hear your thoughts and your ways and their lives might be transformed.
Prayer for the Kunbi People
And so that people far from us, God, we pray for the Kunbi people of India, 16 million of them, God, who have little to no knowledge of your Word and your ways in Jesus. They’ve heard lies about Jesus. They don’t know the truth about Jesus. They don’t know he is the way, the truth, and the life. So God, we pray that the truth about Jesus would spread the Kunbi people of India.
Please, oh, God, hear our prayers for them and answer. Cause the Kunbi to be reached with your gospel and transform our thoughts and our ways in every way we need to be transformed so that our lives are instruments in your hand for the spread of the gospel in the world around us. Oh God, we pray all of this according to your Word in Isaiah 55:8–9… According to your thoughts and your ways. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
