Coloring Outside The Lines

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
 
Most people in our modern-day world pursue paths that are neat, safe, and predictable. We are expected to go to school, make good grades, get a scholarship to college, graduate, get a job in the field of our major, get married, buy a house, have children, retire, live comfortably on a pension, see the grandkids during the summer, die, and go to heaven, and it’s all supposed to happen in that order.  
 
Because we live our lives that way, inside the lines, we assume that the path that God has for us is neat, structured, and clean. God’s will for our lives must conform to this pretty trajectory for life that we imagine for ourselves, and we struggle to accept or to do anything that is presented to us that is outside those lines. The problem with this perspective is that we do not serve an “inside the lines” kind of God.  
 
The God captured in Scripture is a God who challenges His children to think outside the conventional frameworks in order to reach other people and honor Him with the way we live.
 
Now, for those of us who like thinking inside the lines, we can be filled with feelings of anxiousness and uncertainty thinking about God coloring outside the lines. But if we think about it, it should be encouraging and comforting to us that God is not one for conventional methods. After all, if He always did things the way we thought He should and in the timing we planned out on our own, what would separate Him from us?  
 
So let’s be grateful that God doesn’t always do things in the way, the manner, and the timing we expect. Let’s be excited and expectant as we wait to see what He has in store for us, realizing that in some cases, it’s a good thing to color outside the lines.