From The Chaplain's Wife

3. HOW

Higher Ways

By: Steven Curtis Chapman

If I could only fly

I'd go up and look down from the sky

So I could see the bigger picture

And Lord if I could sit with You

At Your feet for an hour or two

I'm sure I'd ask too many questions

'Cause there's so much going on down here

That I must confess I just don't understand

I don't understand

BRIDGE

But I have prayed

And at your feet my whole life has been laid

So I won’t worry I won’t be afraid

'Cause my soul is resting on Your higher ways

So let the road ahead become unclear

For I am Yours so what have I to fear

If my soul is resting on Your higher ways

CHORUS

Your higher ways teach me to trust You

Your higher ways are not like mine

Your higher ways are the ways of the Father

Hiding His children in His love

BRIDGE

So let it rain

And if my eyes grow dim with tears of pain

This hope I have will not be washed away

'Cause my soul is resting on Your higher ways

CHORUS

Someday I will fly and

Maybe then You will take me aside

And show me the bigger picture

But until I'm with You

I'll be here with a heart that is true

And a soul that's resting on

Your higher ways

I am a planner. I am the type of personality who likes to know what’s coming. I like to have a plan that I am working on and toward. Please do not confuse that with my being a Dreamer. I am not a dreamer. I do not look way out in the future and think of all the things that might happen. I look a little ways out into the future and chart a realistic course toward a realistic goal that is fully attainable from what I can tell. That being said, there is a lot about life that totally doesn’t make sense. What was the point in my having been severely burned at the age of twelve? What has been the point of a severe lack of income for our family the past several years? Why was a friend’s husband killed and left to raise three young children on her own? There are so many questions and circumstances that we run into everyday in life that don’t make sense. How are we to make it through life without stressing out constantly? How can I, specifically, live my life filled with peace and hope when so much of it is painful and a struggle and may not seem to make much sense?

It would be so nice to be able every once in awhile to look down from the sky and see the bigger picture, to see where this insanity and pain and monotony fits in to what God is doing. See, we know that God is doing something good with all this, but just what is it? There are so many questions that could be asked of God if we were given the opportunity to get a little clarity on the bigger picture. But we are not given that opportunity. So now what?

Trust.

We have been given the Bible. The Bible is filled with promises given to us by God. We are told in Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,” declares that Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” We simply cannot comprehend the mind of God. The best ideas we can come up with as to how something should or could or might or will work out is but a tiny drop in the bucket of the plans God has laid out from before time began. And we are told in Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” So we know that somehow He is going to make it all be good in the end. In the end, it comes down to trust. Do I choose to trust God and take Him at His Word? Or do I choose to ignore His Word and try to figure it all out on my own?

The peace that passes understanding that we always hear Christian leaders talking about comes when we choose to trust God and rest in His promises. As the song above says, when at His feet your whole life has been laid, then your soul is able to find rest in Him and in the higher ways that He has planned that we will probably never be able to see or comprehend. At that point, when the road ahead is unclear and life is clouded by pain and unanswered questions, we can still rest in Him and His ways and His love, and still be filled with hope – the expectation of that which is to come – eternity with Jesus free from pain.

My husband and I are finding that peace and hope that comes only in resting in the Father. When you get married, it is so easy to find your joy and peace and hope in your spouse, rather than in the Lord. Through the past 15 or so months we have been apart so much that we are unable to rely so fully on the other person for our joy and peace and hope. My husband is not here for me to turn to when the good or the bad comes along. If I am to have any sort of joy or peace or hope, I have to find it at the feet of the Father. And we are finding that the peace, joy and hope we found in one another was so incomplete! It was just a shadow of what we are finding now when we have no real choice but to turn to God! And to think that this, too, on this side of eternity, is still but a shadow of what will come! Incomprehensible Joy and Peace!