Plan

Good morning! If you all are anything like me, you've got something similar to the above for some part of your life - your day, your week, your year, maybe even the next 5 years if you're really intense. I love a good plan. It makes me feel in control of my time (not to mention less stressed), and it helps me to fit in all of the things I want to do! I'm the last one to starting hating on plans and organization, but re: Plans + God, there are definitely some things to think about!

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. 

~Jeremiah 29: 11-13

This is such a heavily quoted verse (for good reason, I might add!), but I wanted to add a few thoughts on it for today. Here we go:

1. "The plans I have for you:" More specifically, not the plans YOU have for you. God doesn't promise to get on board for our plans; rather, he wants us to surrender ours and stick with His instead. This is something that is so easy to forget in practice ("God please bless Plan XYZ that I haven't really prayed about but I really want to happen...")

2. "For welfare and not evil:" This takes trust to believe. When we come up with plans, typically we think their what's best for us. Getting on God's schedule requires admitting the shortcomings of our decision-making and acknowledging that God knows more about our welfare than we do. Again, easy to say, but when God asks you to surrender your plan for His, it's often a different story.

3. "A future and a hope:" I think this is the hardest one for me. Obviously all plans are to help out with something for the future, but the ones I have a hardest time surrendering to the Lord are the ones involving my long terms plans, because it requires more faith on the Lord (I can give God one day, but can I give him 10 years?). It's not just any future though, but one we should be excited about and hope in!

4. Why? Getting close to the Lord: If you look at the consequences of doing this, they're awesome! You get closer to the Lord in prayer, and you get closer to Him with your heart. So if anything else doesn't convince you (like the Lord's sovereignty), the fact that this is a way to grow in the Lord is an extra added bonus.

I'm also super encouraged by this verse because it's in the context of the Israelites being kept in Babylon. If there's any time to feel hopeless and not want to trust in the Lord, it's then. God gives us these instructions in our times of deepest despair. 

My challenge for us today is to pick some of our plans (esp. some long term ones), and pray to the Lord about working in your heart to exchange them for His. The Lord is a God of doing exceedingly and abundantly above what we could ask for or imagine, especially in this!