Does God "Think" The Way We Do?

My pastor at Alamance Lutheran Church (www.alamancelutheran.org) has made many good points in his sermons lately, pointing out things to me that I have never thought of. For example, today he talked about the parable of the mustard seed. For those of you unfamiliar with the parable, it goes something like this:

He said therefore, "What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches."

Pastor pointed out that God did not use a tree that humans would define has grand, like the cedars of Lebanon. Instead, he chose to compare the kingdom of heaven to a bush. A simple, four foot tall bush that was often considered insignificant.

My goal in this post is not to decipher exactly what Jesus meant by using this parable, but rather to establish other pieces of Scripture in which God seems to have a different approach toward things than we humans do. Another example? Consider the parable of the lost sheep. "Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing." Now, does it make any common sense to you for a shepherd to leave 99 sheep to search after just one? Of course not! But that is the way God works.

Another example is the parable of the sower. This one really hit me when my Pastor took a new approach on the parable. Often, the focus on this parable is on the seeds and the soil, but instead he focused on the sower. Typically, farmers are meticulous in how they tend their soil. They throw out the rocks. Till up the weeds and plant seeds a very specific depth. In this parable, it seems as though the sower is just sort of tossing seed around, and one could consider wasting the seed. But Pastor reminded us that there are all types and we shouldn't be so quick to assume we are wheat and not weeds. Regardless, this is just another example of how Gods paradigm is vastly different from our own.

What does this all mean? I don't know. Don't claim to even try. What I do know is that we are often so wrapped up in our minds and in "figuring things out" that we fail to appreciate a God who breathed life into the universe, walked on water, and saves souls every day.