This post is written by Leslie Hudson as a companion for Unit 28, Session 4 of The Gospel Project for Adults, Volume 10: From Many People to One People (Winter 2023-24).

I consider myself to be of average brain power and understanding. I have been quoted as saying, “I’m a competent member of society.” And most of the time, that’s true. But I have people in my life who are also competent members of society whose brains and sensory organs work differently from mine.

I worked in a musical setting with a guy named Jeff. I passed him in the hall one day as he was looking at a painting of an orchestra. I commented that I liked the painting, and he asked, “What key are they playing in?” He wasn’t joking; he was serious. I looked back at the painting; the somewhat-shapeless orchestra members were outlined in black, their instruments were gold, and the background contained streaks of red. I had no idea what key that imparted. “It’s B major, of course,” he said matter-of-factly and walked off. Jeff can hear through his eyes; his eyes are not my eyes.

My dad has a knack for fixing things. For my entire life, he was the one to do any home repair or fix anything that broke on our vehicles. After I’d gotten married and moved out, we had my parents over to eat one night. We started talking about a drip in our shower faucet. Dad, of course, volunteered to look at it. But as he started turning knobs and inspecting the issue, he gave a diagnosis: “There are a dozen things that could be going on here, and none of them is a quick fix. It’s 8:00 on a Saturday night, and all the home improvement stores are closing. This is a project for another day.” He was right. Luckily, Dad’s mechanical brain is not my mechanical brain.

My mother has an eye for decoration. She knows how to set up a room in a beautiful way without even going to the store. She can rearrange throw pillows, photographs, and furniture in such a way that it looks more comfortable, more inviting, and more peaceful. And when she has a chance to paint and add accents, you feel like you have an entirely new house. As you can imagine, I use her grasp of home décor to help me with my own house. Her spatial awareness and eye for design is not mine.

My friend Michael Anne sits next to me in the church choir. We both sing alto, but she does it with a much different finesse. She’s much more experienced and has a much better ear than I do; because of that, she can not only read music and sing the correct notes, but she can also hear a harmony line that no one else detects. We are all blessed when Michael Anne sings on mic at church because her ability to draw a beautiful line out of a set of chords and melody is truly a gift from God. Her harmonies are not my harmonies.

I could go on and on; you could do the same. Some people just hear, smell, taste, cook, approach, watch, examine, see, and handle our world differently than we do. And though we are vastly different, we’re still all humans, designed by God with blessings as well as limitations. If we can be so different in our thoughts and senses, then, how much more different—in an amazing, eternal, awe-inspiring, unfathomable way—is God from us? When He says “my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways” (Isaiah 55:8), He’s not talking about the differences between us as humans. It’s the difference between the God of all space and time compared to something He created. It’s vastly, beautifully, and dramatically higher. We worship God for being unlike us. And as we look at Isaiah 55 as well as Matthew 28 this week, we will be drawn to praise Him for being with us even as He is immensely different.

Leslie Hudson loves her mornings of silence, coffee, and Jesus—not in that order. She lives with her husband and kids in White Bluff, Tennessee, where they raise blueberries, figs, and bees. She loves to spend her free time reading, writing, journaling, and helping others know and follow Jesus.