God says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9, KJV).
Based on this verse, it is the height of the heavens relative to the earth that defines the magnitude of difference between God’s ways and ours. The problem with that point is that we have no clue of the scale we are talking about.
I am reminded of the news when scientists presented its first pictures acquired by NASA’s New Horizon spacecraft. The historic journey began January 19, 2006, when the spacecraft left Kennedy Space Center.
It took New Horizons approximately 9-1/2 years to reach the point of doing a flyby of Pluto! This was because of the distance required to reach its destination—almost 3 billion miles. The spacecraft blasted off at a speed of over 36,000 mph!
Personally, I have trouble mentally grasping these numbers: 9-1/2 years of space travel to get there, nearly 3 billion miles, and 36,000 mph.
The problem with those numbers is that we can’t grasp the scale we are talking about. For me, the distance traveled to accomplish New Horizon’s flyby of Pluto makes the Bible verse above even more profound to me. How vast are the creations! How awesome is our God!
Learning More about God through Science
Admittedly, I am no closer to knowing how much higher the heavens are than earth. But it’s reasonable to say that it’s more than the nearly 3 billion miles New Horizon had to travel for a Pluto flyby. Reasonable, I say, because the travel of the spacecraft was not all vertical but vertical as well as horizontal. But God says as the heavens are higher than the earth so are His ways higher than ours. Only God knows that difference. So, only He knows the magnitude of the difference between His ways and ours.
Thanks to the New Horizons expedition, we now know more about the journey from earth to Pluto than we have ever known before. We will never know the distance from earth to the heavens, however. Suffice it to say that God’s ways are immeasurably higher than ours.
That brings us to the importance of the Bible. Based on the verse above, you and I can’t intuitively know the ways of God. We would be so wrong to use human reasoning to draw conclusions about God. That God is not a man is an extreme understatement.
Furthermore, His ways are past finding out (Romans 11:25). Unlike it was for Pluto, we can’t go on a space expedition and discover the ways of God. We can learn His ways only through what He reveals to us through His Word.
Space expeditions like New Horizons flyby of Pluto reveal more and more about the grandeur of the creations. These in turn reveal the breadth of the greatness of the Creator behind them.
Copyright © 2022 by Frank King. All rights reserved.