An Illustration

Recently we were in a small group setting to do some praying together with a team. We were being led through the time by someone using the ACTS acronym with the goal of doing more than just bringing our requests before God. In the acronym, the “A” is for adoration, “C” for confession, “T” for thanksgiving and the “S” is for supplication.

During the adoration time, I had just praised God for the fact that his thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts and his ways are not like our ways, based on Isaiah 55:8-9.

"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.
NIV

In the silence that followed, an image popped into my mind’s eye and I believe the image illustrates those verses.

The image was a battlefield where mighty hosts were engaged in hand-to-hand combat. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords was engaging Satan and his demons in a life and death struggle. The survival of Truth and souls of men were at stake. Jesus was matching Satan’s blows stroke for stroke with his sword while simultaneously directing legions of angels to outflank the enemy. As he leaps off his white charger to rescue someone about to be run through by a demonic weapon, a child approaches him, blithely oblivious to all that is going on around him. Tugging on Jesus’ clothing the child says, “Jesus, Jackie got a bit more jelly on his bread than I did.”

I had to stifle my laughter to keep from disrupting the prayer time. Too often my thoughts are surely that incongruous with the spiritual reality around me.