“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,”says the Lord.”And my ways are far beyond anything you can imagine.” Isaiah 8
I grew up in the country, ten miles out of town. We had a really long driveway, but about half-way to the end of it, there was a tree. When my sister and I rode our bicycles, which we often did, Mama told us not to go past that tree. She didn’t want us to get too close to the road.
She told us the road was dangerous. There were very few cars that traveled down it. I didn’t really see what the big deal was, but we complied. We probably pedaled a hundred miles during the summer time, up and down that driveway, but we didn’t venture much further than that boundary she had set.
We had a poodle when I was growing up and she had puppies. We were allowed to keep two of them. We loved those little yippee dogs. One morning, before school, one of them didn’t return from their morning bathroom break, when we called for them.
We lived on many acres and it would have been impossible to fence it all. We waited and waited, but Mama said we had to go to school.
When we reached the end of the driveway, the dog had been run over by a car. We were devastated.
It turned out that the road was in fact, a dangerous place. Mama knew things that our little minds couldn’t possibly comprehend. I had a brand new respect for the dangers of the road.
Fast forward some forty years. We are living in the information age. If we don’t know the answer to something, we just Google it. Brand new, infinite knowledge, is always at our fingertips.
It’s easy to start to think that we know everything.
It’s interesting that the one tree in the Garden of Eden that Satan tricked Adam and Even into eating from, was the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Satan wanted them to believe that they could know all that God knows and thus began the fall of man.
When we become Christians and walk with Jesus, we acknowledge that we don’t have all of the answers and we never will on this side of Eternity. How else do we wrap our limited minds around the concept of grace?
We begin to understand that we can’t know what God knows and that wisdom and knowledge are not the same thing.
There are boundaries set for God’s children, just like that tree in my driveway. We sometimes don’t understand them, just like I didn’t understand mine as a child, but God has His reasons, just like Mama had hers. He knows things that our little minds can’t possibly fathom.
Boundaries aren’t meant to hurt or restrict us. They are meant to keep us safe and true wisdom comes from understanding that.
An old tree in a driveway reminded me. Perhaps you needed reminding too.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂