God’s Ways Are Higher than Our Ways

We are our Heavenly Father’s sons and daughters, and more than anything else, He wants us to come home to Him. At night I used to stare at the stars and wonder where our heavenly home was. The beauty and vastness of space filled me with awe for God and His creations. Still what we can see is just the beginning: there are more stars in the heavens than there are grains of sand on the earth. (See Neal A. Maxwell, “How Choice a Seer,” Ensign, November 2003, 100.) Yet despite the vastness of His creations, our Father in Heaven has numbered the very hairs on our heads! (Matthew 10:30.)

Little wonder that when Moses saw our Heavenly Father’s creations he exclaimed, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.” (Moses 1:10.) Comparing man’s greatest accomplishments in technology, literature, science, government, medicine, philosophy, and like disciplines to God’s accomplishments, is like trying to compare a lightbulb to the sun. There is no comparison. Consequently, God’s superiority assures us that we can trust Him, even when things seem to go horribly wrong.

While the infinite works of God may be incomprehensible, our Heavenly Father, mercifully, is knowable. Before leaving His Apostles for Gethsemane and Golgotha, Jesus prayed and revealed one of the most simple and powerful doctrines recorded in the scriptures: “And this is eternal life, that [we] might know [Heavenly Father] the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He] has[] sent.” (John 17:3.)

Thus, knowing the only true God must be the focus of our mortal sojourn. For if we know Him, we will be like Him, and if we are like Him, we will return to Him. (Moroni 7:48.)

And Heavenly Father will help us to know Him and His Son. Moses’ vision did not close with his sobering realization of mankind’s inferiority. Rather, Moses asked God a question, “Tell me, I pray thee, why these things are so, and by what thou madest them?” (Moses 1:30.) And God answered:

For my own purpose have I made these things. . . . And by the word of my power, have I created them, which is mine Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth.

And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten. . . .

The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine.

And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words.

For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. (Moses 1:32-33, 37-39.)

This answer confirmed Moses’ recognition of mankind’s nothingness and refuted it. In essence, the Father told him: While compared to Me, mankind is nothing, to Me, mankind is everything. His eternal concern focuses on us.

And because His concern centers on us, God tailors all of His creations, thoughts, and actions for our salvation. How easy it should be to love and serve the God whose energy focuses exclusively on us, His children!