When you see no way out of your problem.

I bend over to tie my tennis shoes and head out for a walk.  Beautiful summer evening in Montana –not chilly enough for a sweatshirt and not hot enough to break a sweat. 

But I’m stressed.  Mind working a problem I’ve worked all day. 

I take my usual walking route in a figure eight around the neighborhood, and my mind takes the same routes it has taken all day long. 

If we do this, it could lead to this and this and this.  Dead end. 

If we do that, it could lead to this and this and this.  Dead end. 

No matter which way I think it through, nothing seems to be a good solution. 

What do we do, God?  Which way do we go?  Nothing works. 

Mind churning. 

The Spirit brings a familiar verse I’ve memorized to my mind.  “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  NIV) 

My thoughts aren’t the same as His.  My mental dead end isn’t His.  The only ways I see to solve our dilemma is not the only way He can see. 

My preacher husband says, God has more information.  Red-sea-parting, lion-mouth-shutting, furnace-won’t-burn you, grave-can’t-hold-you kind of information. 

Where does that leave me? 

Dependent.  So I stop working the problem and start praying the verse instead.  Your ways are higher than the only ways I can invent right now.  Your thoughts on this problem are higher than what I can think up on this summer night.  Can’t do this without You –don’t know which way to go on my own. 

 Have you ever had an experience when God came up with a solution you had never thought of to solve a problem?  I would love to hear about it.