For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways—oracle of the LORD.

To continue from Isaiah’s 55th chapter:

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways,

my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

These aren’t pulled from Today’s Readings, but when reading about the Passover and the instructions of God to Moses and Aaron in the first reading, my thoughts immediately went to this passage from Isaiah.  I struggle when I read in today’s first reading…

For on this same night I will go through Egypt,
striking down every first born of the land, both man and beast,
and executing judgment on all the gods of Egypt—I, the LORD!
But the blood will mark the houses where you are.
Seeing the blood, I will pass over you;
thus, when I strike the land of Egypt,
no destructive blow will come upon you.

“This day shall be a memorial feast for you,
which all your generations shall celebrate
with pilgrimage to the LORD, as a perpetual institution.

Have you ever heard somebody make the comment similar to this – “My god would never allow someone to die.”?  I have heard it said many times and for the longest time in my life, I agreed with them.  How could a god who I believe to be all loving and forgiving ever allow someone to die on his watch.

I was listening to EWTN one day when somebody asked the same question and the answer made me pause and give this much thought.  I still think about it to this day which is why my mind went to the passage from Isaiah this morning when reading about the Passover.  Our God does allow death to happen; our God even allows the death of the innocent to happen.  We read this in Genesis (today) how His angels killed the firstborn child of every Egyptian; we read it in Matthew’s gospel when Herod kills the every male child (and still commemorate that day with the Feast of Holy Innocents); and then we proclaim it at every Mass commemorating the death of our Lord.  God’s ways are not my ways, God’s thoughts are not my thoughts.  It is hard sometimes to accept this but this is one of the mysteries of our faith.  Take time to read and think about the Passover (from our first reading this morning).  Read about the Holy Innocents in Matthew’s Gospel and then read the Passion.  God does allow death – I must learn to accept this because He is God and He alone is the author of life – He alone is the author of death.

Do something great for our Lord today – pray for those who suffer; pray for the Holy Innocents; pray in thanksgiving for the sacrifice our Lord made on the Cross.  It is thru death, and death alone, that the faithful will find eternal life.

God’s will, not mine, be done.

Be not afraid; just have faith.

Jesus, I trust in You.

He must increase; I must decrease.