Gods ways are not our ways - by Elizabeth Reynolds

This happened sometime last year just as the onslaught of pandemic restrictions happened. I was going for a walk along the streets around my house, when I came across one footpath paver that looked different from all the others. You know how most footpaths are those large squarish slabs of concrete?

Well, this particular concrete square had set in it a little trail of bird footprints going from one side of the square all the way across to the other. I smiled to myself. For some reason this thought popped into my head:

We can make all the plans we want, but God will always have His way.

I got to thinking how when the workmen laid that slab of concrete down, probably sectioned it off with cones or a string of orange flags to keep people from walking in the wet cement. But nobody told the bird not to walk there. One little bird minding its own business, walking where it pleases, without paying any heed to whether it was walking on dry ground or slightly wet sticky ground.

This happens all over the place and I bet when those workers returned to check out their great work and see it to completion, they were more than a little peeved.

But those cute, sweet little bird footprints made me smile so much that day. I loved that little bird. And I loved God’s ways that are so often different from our own. No matter how careful we plan something and have an idea of how things should be, God will make quite a different, unmistakable mark on that situation that might tick us off a little at the time (let’s be honest).

God’s way may seem a little messy at the time, but it’s by far the most interesting! Just like that one concrete slab had the most character and charm out of all the other uniform ones.

Right after that, we were all forced to stay in our homes as much as possible, and our lives were turned upside down...

We have one idea. God has a very different one, and in all of that, (as hard as it may be) we need to try and stand back and admire the beauty of it, just like those beautiful little bird-prints in the hardened concrete.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,”

declares the Lord.

“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

God bless you this week.

by Elizabeth Reynolds