The Ways of God:

The solutions to so many of our problems, and more specifically, of interface with others, including those we love, are simple solutions which we have overlooked, or just have not known, for so many years, because we were busy ‘working it out’, trying to solve them on an entirely human or psychological basis.

Some of those tough problems may be worked out that way, or even by some philosophical reasoning, which is the wisdom of man, also known often as ‘common sense‘.

But other situations, which may seem impossible, because they just go on and on, and even seem at times to get worse, driving us much farther apart, must be solved another way, and not by our commonly used ‘conventional’ way, which has not worked up until now.

They may work for some, or in some instances, but maybe not for all situations, for some are more delicate and sensitive, and even deeper than they appear to be upon our first observation.

When we can’t seem to work some of those things out, after we try so hard, we may find that it just accelerates the problem to an impossible status which cannot be worked out ‘our way’.

And what is that way which does work?

God’s way.

This is the ‘other way’, or the ‘last ditch effort‘, for some; and it is more than clearly manifested in these scriptures, which have been there in the Bible all the while we were making our best human efforts to make these things work out:

Proverbs 14:12:

“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”

Sometimes we are able to make some of them work out, using common and ordinary human reasoning; but if they seem to be getting worse, we must remember that God knows the hearts of all men, and we don’t; so we must go to Him for the answer:

Isaiah 55:8-9:

“ ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways’, saith 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.’.”

When we realize this principle of God, that His thoughts and ways are higher than all collective human thoughts and reasoning, which, for the most part, His wisdom and knowledge are exceedingly beyond our power of reason, and way beyond all our devising of the many ingenious ways we may implement, to try to get something accomplished, settled, or completed; He is always ready to assist us when we put our trust in Him, in any situation, in any scenario.

Proverbs 3:5-6:

5) “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

6) “In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.”

Psalm 37:5:

5) “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass. And He shall bring forth (manifest) thy righteousness (right behavior by faith in Jesus Christ) as the light (to all who see your ‘good manners’ in the Lord), and thy judgment (right decisions and conclusions) as the noonday (as in brightest sunlight, that it would be hidden from no one).”

Recently, a situation which had lasted for many, many years, and had been a constant consideration in my heart, suddenly came to light.

In this seemingly total impossibility, I saw a faint glimmer of hope, for which I had been praying for so long, that God would bring it to pass.

That glimmer of hope had actually occurred almost two years prior to my ultimate realization that it even existed!

So I moved upon it without hesitating a second, with more intense and specific prayer, seeing that that impossible relationship might be from somewhat, to totally restored.

It was a few weeks later when I fully realized that my prayer, for the solving of one of the most complicated, or maybe ‘impossible’, things, for which I had petitioned the great God of glory, was about to come to pass, in reality, and in actuality.

Need I tell you, that, I know God can do anything but fail!

Knowing that God had reconciled a thing which the devil had tried his best to destroy, I now can believe Him for any thing, for Jesus said:

“And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in My name, I will do it.” (John 14:13-14)

Yes, yes, yes! God answers prayers. I have seen many truly and miraculously healed, and I myself have been healed several times.

I have been delivered out of many difficulties specifically and truly just as I had asked.

Once I prayed for a certain thing for two weeks. And when I looked more closely at the situation, God had already answered prayer two weeks earlier, when I first prayed for the problem.

My problem? I saw about two ways that God could handle it for me, and I watched both of those ways. God had a third way, but my ‘two ways’ blinded me to the other.

Another problem arose (among many) once, when I found I was going to come up about twelve dollars short on payday (the next day), and would not, in that case, be able to meet my need.

I was able to calculate my paycheck to the penny, and I found it would be twelve dollars short.

My wife and I prayed specifically that God would meet our need.

When I received my paycheck….guess what?! I had exactly twelve dollars more than I had calculated the day before.

Another time, I drove my 1955 V8 Chevrolet from Cleburne, Texas, to Topeka, Kansas, to work for Santa Fe.

I was only considering one more thing that was in my life, which may not be pleasing to God, and that was the fact that I liked country music. I was ready to give that up, so that my life would be perfect before my God and my Savior.

On the way to Topeka, I (yes, I) exceeded the speed limit somewhat.

But God chastised me for that, in that, though I did not realize it, the 1955 Chevy engine had flat-topped pistons, which, at a high rate of speed, would come into contact with the valves, and either break the valve, or the piston head. And that is what it did.

So now, not only did my engine run very badly, but my gas mileage plummeted, due to the free flow of raw gas, and the strain on the remainder of the horsepower I now had because of the damage to the engine.

We were tight on money, because I had only a hundred twenty-five dollars in my pocket, and it would be about two weeks until payday.

And, since I was only now getting about six or eight miles per gallon of gas mileage, things were becoming more and more desperate.

So my wife, Dawn, and I, prayed that God would help us to get better gas mileage. And He did. Now I was getting about fifteen miles to the gallon. But I was still not ‘altogether unpunished’ (Jeremiah 30:11c), for the engine still ran terribly rough. I replaced it with a 1963 ‘283’, with money I borrowed from my mother, and gave my friend Leonard

The old ‘265’ I had replaced, for helping me change out the engine.

Trust God. He knows ‘another way’! And it may not even be close to any ways you or I may see. (Remember Isaiah 55:8-9)

I have seen salvation through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which He shed on Calvary’s cross, until there was no more blood, but only water came out of His spear-pierced side, with that crown of thorns pushed into the flesh of His head, with about five-inch nails driven into His arms, going through and firmly attaching His body, which had been fiercely and ruthlessly beaten by a nine-tail whip with sharp pieces of material attached to the ends of each tail, his beard violently yanked out by the handfuls, without even a trial of any kind. (See Isaiah 53)

He carried that wooden cross from the judgment hall to the place which was also called ‘Golgotha’ (‘place of the skull’), stumbling under its weight at least once.

His strength was so far gone, that, when they came to break the legs of Jesus, as they commonly did, so that the ‘criminals’ on the cross would die, His body was already dead.

But not the Jesus Who was God the Son, for His Spirit went into the ‘holding place’ of souls of those that had died without the law (from about BC3972, to BC1462, when Moses received the law from God on Mount Sinai, at Horeb), and He revealed Himself as their Messiah (the anointed of God, the anointed One, Christ), Who had shed His blood for them, and Jesus ‘led captivity (those who were held in that sort of ‘prison’) captive, into the presence of God, even all of those wicked and evil persons who lived until the flood, and all who had lived in a period of time when there was no law to transgress, though many did evil continually:

Romans 4:15:

15) “Because the law (commandment) worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.

16) “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all (in faith, because Abraham received the promise, both for the Jew (after the covenant ‘seal’ of circumcision), and the Gentile (which Abraham was before circumcision).

Ephesians 2:8-10:

8) “For by grace (which came by Jesus, with truth: John 1:17) are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.

9) “Not of (the) ‘works’ (as by the law), lest any man should boast.

(Romans 3:

10) “For we are HIS workmanship, created (re-created, born again, a new man) in Christ Jesus unto ‘good’ works (which are done in ‘faith, which worketh by love.’: Galatians 5:6b), which God hath before (creation) ordained that we should (continuously) walk in them.”

God loves you, Mr. or Ms. ‘Whosoever’! John 3:16: Love Him back.

dunomos@aol.com