For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For 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 (KJV)

My neighbor planted flowers that surround her mailbox.

They’re pretty, but they’re tall. Really tall. They’re so tall you can barely see the mailbox.

When they first sprung up, I remember thinking, Why on earth would she plant those right there by the mailbox?

They just seemed so out of place.

Nobody else in the neighborhood had anything like them around their mailbox. They were much taller than what I would have chosen for that space.

Then yesterday, I was walking my dog and noticed something different.

Butterflies.

Several of them were gathered around those tall flowers.

I stopped and watched them for a while. They were beautiful, moving from flower to flower, right there around the mailbox.

And I thought, Huh.

I’m actually glad she planted these.

Because now I could stand there and watch the butterflies.

When It Doesn’t Make Sense

How often do we look at something happening in our lives and think:

Why on earth would this happen?

It doesn’t make sense.

It doesn’t belong here.

This isn’t how I would have done it.

This certainly isn’t what I would have chosen.

We look at what’s directly in front of us and make a judgment based on what we can see.

I saw tall flowers surrounding a mailbox.

What I didn’t see were the butterflies that would eventually come.

There are things that happen in our lives that don’t make any sense to us. Things that seem completely random or out of place. We wonder why God would allow them or what possible purpose they could have.

But while we’re looking at what’s in front of us, God sees the whole thing.

Isaiah 55:8–9 reminds us that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways.

Our inability to see a purpose doesn’t mean there isn’t one.

Sometimes we’re looking at the flowers before the butterflies have arrived.