Wisdom of God

God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places (Ephesians 3:10 NLT)

Paul is writing to the Ephesians from a dark and nasty cell in Rome where he is imprisoned for the sake of the Gospel.  Yet, as he pens this amazing letter, he states that “all this,” and the all includes his imprisonment, is to display the wisdom of God. 

The average Christian has to stop here and ask the question, “Really?  God, did you really think it was smart to stick Paul in a deplorable Roman prison, devoid of the basic necessities of life, cold, lonely, and – worst of all – out of circulation for spreading the Gospel?” 

That’s when the words of Isaiah, the prophet, come rushing to 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 NKJV).

In deed, God’s thoughts and wisdom are higher than ours because ours are all wrapped up, for the most part, in this life and staying within our comfort zones.  The thought of being “on fire” for Jesus really only goes so far as we passionately tell a few folks about Him.  It never includes being sawn in two, like the man through whom God penned those words about His thoughts.

Paul understood, like not many men in this world, that his external circumstances had nothing at all to do with his mission in this life.  As he stated in another book, he had learned how to abase and abound, which meant he was oblivious to his surroundings and was completely focused on the task at hand – which was to present the Gospel.  So, from the dark and miserable Roman prison, Paul writes one of the brightest and most exhilarating letters of his career.  And chances are, had he been out and about, he might not have found the time to pen most of the New Testament, which was written in these times of being “out of circulation.” 

So, in God’s wisdom, He chooses to use the foolish things to confound the wise, the low things for the high calling, the servant to be master, and death to be the doorway to life.  And as the drama of the human race plays out on the theater of planet earth, the Heavenly hosts stand in awe of the wisdom of God.

Lord, grant me your wisdom today to play my part in your holy script.