I Have a Plan for You
Jeremiah 29:11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.
Have you ever been in that place where you wonder, “Where’s my life headed? It’s all just same old same old. It’s just kind of drifting along without much meaning or purpose. Can it really keep on going like this, week after week, year after year?”
It doesn’t matter what you do in life, how glamorous or amazing other people happen to think your lot is, 99.9% of living is about the mundane, every day drudgery of life. We do whatever it is that we do, over and over again, and eventually, we’re all asking ourselves – So … what? Is this all there is?
Phyllis is a friend of mine. She’s 103 years old. Sharp as a tack, with a rapier wit. I asked her the other day – So Phyllis, if you could turn back time and change one thing, what would it be?
Her answer was simple. “I’d take more risks”, she said. And interestingly, that’s one of the most common answers to that question that older people give. This idea that, if I had my time over again, I’d break out of the drudgery and try something outrageously different.
Why don’t people do that? Probably, it’s the fear of failure. And in any case, I think we think that the drudgery is all there is. That from now until the end of our days, this is all there is.
At a time when Israel was in captivity, in slavery in Babylon, when they were coming to the end of that terrible time – of course they didn’t know they were coming to the end of it, they couldn’t see anything beyond the drudgery of slavery, they’d heard about the so-called promised land, but most of them had been born in slavery, they couldn’t imagine freedom, they couldn’t imagine that land flowing with milk and honey – at that time, this is what God said them:
For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)
It’s a verse that’s often quoted out of context. But when you realise the context, the power of His Word becomes evident.
He spoke those words at a time when His people couldn’t see a future; at a time when they didn’t have any hope, when the drudgery of slavery was all that there appeared to be.
So, can I suggest, if you find yourself in that exact, same place today, that it’s time to receive God’s Word of hope, of a real future, a good future, of God’s plans for your welfare and not for your harm, into your heart today.
And at some point, the time comes to step out into that plan – to take “more risks”.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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