My Thoughts Are Not Your Thoughts

Sept. 20, 2026

Jesus tells the most baffling of His sermons this week. He tells of a landowner who goes out at four different times to hire laborers for his vineyard, agreeing to pay them the traditional wage. At the end of the day, he pays each of them the same, which upsets the ones hired first and thrills those who were hired last.
   
Jesus tells them that he paid what he had contracted for, and asked, “Am I not free to use my money as I please?” His punchline is, “My ways are not your ways.”
   
There will be any number of situations in which we are baffled by what God allows and does not allow. We are reminded that God’s ways are not our ways. Very often when things do not make sense to us, we decide that God is the one that is wrong. We make ourselves into His judges, putting God on trial, because we think that our ways are superior to His.

It takes a lot of humility to surrender to the ways of God and to accept that He sees more clearly than we do. It is like a 9-month-old not understanding why he or she cannot freely roam about the house unsupervised. They do not understand the notion of falling down steps or pulling something over on themselves. Like them, we do not see all, as God does, so we cannot make a judgment on God’s plan or will.
—Fr. Mike Comer