Plans

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:11-13)



"If you were capable of handling everything that came your way, how would others ever realize that His strength is what makes you strong?" - by Dr. Charles Stanley


What are the plans God has for you? Do you truly believe that they are "to prosper you and not to harm you"? What about when things get hard, when you can't see God through the valley? Will you still believe?



You see, I ask this for a reason. I think that, as Christians, we tend to misinterpret this verse. Please understand, I am not a pastor, nor a theologian. I am simply trying to understand the incomprehensible God I serve. We read this verse, "to prosper you and not to harm you", and tend to assume that everything will be good. That we won't have problems. Or, we take another approach. We think assume that we can handle everything, and that God will fix it if we need to.



What does it mean to prosper? Does it mean that He'll protect us from every hurt, put us in a bubble, never allow us to fall? Would you do that with your child? Would you withhold life-saving medicine because you knew it would hurt? Would you keep your child locked up, dangerously sheltered from the world, because you knew they would get hurt? Would you withhold consequences for wrong decisions because they cause pain? I don't think so. We, as parents, know what is best for our child. And yes, some of those experiences may hurt. But they are, in the long run, to prosper and not harm our child.



And yet, when life gets rough, we doubt that Daddy ultimately has our best intentions in mind.

I want desperately to minister to hurting people. I want to be there for them. And yet I take the independent attitude, the "I can do it myself". Well, if nothing else, this past year and a half have shown me that I cannot do it myself. Do I still believe that His word is true? Absolutely! I am now walking in the realization that there are consequences for EVERY action I take. And God will not withhold those consequences, good or bad, if He knows that they are ultimately for my good.

It is much easier to trust God for your financial provision when you have more than enough to pay the bills. It is easy to "know" Him as your healer when all in your family are healthy. It's easy to believe that He goes before you when the world is on your side. But, when you have no idea where the money to pay the bills will come from, when someone you love, or you, is very sick, when you are unfairly accused, you HAVE no other choice. You HAVE to trust Him. And it is no longer a superficial, surface-deep trust. It becomes the trust that cannot be shaken, that is deeper than any situation. To prosper means to live the fullest life possible, to be aware of God's holy presence throughout our day, to seek His will and do it.

I still don't trust Him how I want to. But I have learned that deep trust enough in the last while to realize when I am really trusting, and when it's just surface. When I'm still trying to figure it out on my own. I want desperately to be a witness of His provision, His comfort, His healing, His protection. But I will not be effective if my trust is only skin-deep. And so, while I may not completely understand the path He has chosen for me, I will continue to walk it. I will choose to believe that His ultimate intentions for me are to prosper, even when I can't "see" the prosperity. Because I pray that one day I will be able to minister to you in your hurt, in your pain. And not with a surface love, but rather the deep love that comes from walking the same path. And while I will not intentionally ask for pain or suffering (really, who would?), I will choose to praise in the midst of it, because I am gaining a deeper understanding of the reality of my amazing God. Are you?