Rooted Pre Season: Episode 4

In this episode of Rooted, we reflect on Isaiah 55:8–11 and the tension we feel when God’s ways don’t align with our own. This passage reminds us that God’s wisdom is not distant or indifferent, but deeper than our limited perspective. His word is never empty. What He speaks always accomplishes its purpose, even when we don’t understand it yet.

This episode invites us to trust God’s wisdom, not because we see the full picture, but because He does 🤎

Transcript

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Welcome to Rooted with Emily Talento, where we explore who Jesus is through context, culture, and covenant. I'm so glad you're here, and if you're tuning in for the first time or you jumped in in the middle, I wanna give some context on what is happening. This is a seven episode audio only mini series based off of a devotional I wrote on the character of God. Episode answers a question with an attribute of God. After the seven episodes, some pretty exciting news. We will not just be audio only, we will have a video component, which I'm super excited for. Stay tuned. I will give more updates. So today, the question is, does God actually know what's best for me? And the answer is, God is wise. What does it mean for God to be wise? It means he perfectly knows what's best and chooses the right way and time to accomplish it, even when we don't understand. What did we talk about yesterday? We are unbelievably limited. Limited in every single respect, every single way. We have no idea of the next five seconds of our life. And somehow we think we know what's best in major decisions of our lives? We are completely delusional. We have so much confidence in self based on what? Based on nothing actually. Let's talk about the scripture for the day and then we'll dive a little deeper. So we're in Isaiah 55 verses eight through 11. It says, for my thoughts or not your thoughts, neither are your ways. My ways declare the Lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth. So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts? Higher than your thoughts for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth making it bring forth and sprout. Giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Okay. Wow. So I wanna break this down. I have three takeaways from this passage. Number one, God's ways are not our ways. I know that's not surprising. Also, what did we talk about yesterday? We talked about how we are so limited. Our perspective is so finite. In comparison, God could see everything, everything. We can't even see tomorrow. We can't even see 20 minutes from now. We can't even see literally five seconds into the future. God could see every, every, everything and knows how it would play if it went the way that we wanted it to. What is wrong with us, truthfully, because here's the thing, in reality, we don't often get to see the other side of it on this side of eternity, right? Like. I know in heaven, one day we'll be able to look back and say, oh, okay, well it all makes sense and that's not always something that we have here. It's not always clear to see why things didn't work out the way we wanted them to. Sometimes we do get to see, and I think that helps us build trust to recognize that God really does have our best interest at heart. What he's doing really is for our good and his glory, even if it doesn't feel like our good in the moment, and oftentimes it doesn't. Number two, not only are God's ways higher than our ways, but his words have power When he speaks, things happen. I love how in verse 11 it talks about how, his words will not return to him empty. There's power in his word. We know this ephesians six. It's the sword. In the armor of God. Whether we can see it or acknowledge it in the moment or not, god's word is shaping reality immediately. It is happening as he's speaking. So even when we don't see something's happening or we don't feel like something's working, he is. And number three, God's timing is purposeful and perfect. He can't give us things before we're ready. I mean, he could, but then he wouldn't be wise then he wouldn't be good. He's never given me a reason to doubt him and somehow I still doubt him all the time. So I don't know how that quite works, but I do know that by reflecting on the times when his wisdom was clear that continues to train our brains to trust him more moving forward. Again, switching this from a head knowledge thing to an experiential knowledge. It's about integrating what we know to be true about God into our lives. So when difficulty strike, when we're not getting what we want, we can say, thank you, God, for protecting me, because I know that if you would give this to me right now, then it wouldn't be for my good. It wouldn't be for your glory. I think of 2024 was a really unbelievably challenging year for me. Pretty much every area of my life had some major upset that revealed the ways that I wasn't relying on God. It revealed the ways I was relying on self or the ways I was relying on others or things. And although I would really never like to relive that year again, ever. I recognize the fact that the outcome was invaluable. With everything stripped back I could see God in a way that I don't know if I ever have before. It put me on a different trajectory. Not that I didn't know these truths, not that I didn't know his character, but I forgot. Sometimes it really does require us to hit the bottom And as horrible as it was, and it was real bad. If it got me to the same outcome, seeing God's hand in a way that I wouldn't have otherwise, I, I would do it again. Sometimes he uses really difficult things to get us where he wants us, and in my human wisdom I could say 2024 was awful. But in God's wisdom, he knew what was required to get me to the place that I needed to be with him in life. I'm a firm believer that what we're experiencing now is for a purpose. There is a purpose in everything we're experiencing. We might not know what the purpose is on this side of eternity. We might, and that's cool too. But every experience is an opportunity to grow in our relationship with God, to grow in trust, to grow in faith, to grow in love for others. Do we do this perfectly? No, of course not, but I think that's part of recognizing his wisdom. So for today's rooted moment, we're gonna talk about the Hebrew understanding of wisdom. It wasn't about intellectual insight. I think that a lot of times we interpret it that way'cause that's kind of how our culture has come to understand it but in hebraic thought Hebrew understanding it was understood as a life shaped by alignment with God's order in the world. So wisdom was expressed more through action direction, how you're living your life rather than how much one comprehends. It's about alignment. We when life gets hard, when it doesn't go the way we think it should, we could be confident that his ways are higher than our ways. His word has power and his timing is perfect. And that will motivate us to live lives of wisdom, to live lives that are aligned with him. If you enjoyed this episode. Please like, subscribe, comment, really anything you would do for any of the other podcasts you like. You could follow me on Instagram at Emily Talento and at Rooted with Emily Talento for the podcast.