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. Jeremiah 29:11
I have to say that God has given me a love for children. I must confess that it has not always been the case. Every teacher will tell you that come Friday; the last thing that they want is to deal with screaming kids, so to hear in the middle of one of those chain stores the plaintiff wail of a child screaming to his mother, “No, I don’t wanna!!! I DON’T WANNA!!!” set my teeth on edge like taking a huge bite of a juicy cringe inducing lemon.
Sometimes I wonder what we sound like to God. Do we sound like the perfect little child of God saying,” Oh Father, you are so wonderful and we thank you for everything you do.” or do we sound like that child demanding, “NO!!! I don’t wanna!!!”
We have spent our lives defying God. Some deny him, refusing to acknowledge that God exists and that he has a standard for our lives, for others they just fail to hold to Gods standard. Either way we distance ourselves from God. Our sins and failings build a wall between us and our Loving Lord. We can be taken captive by our sins, captive by addiction, unhealthy relationships, even pornography can ensnare us. We alienate ourselves from God and we become defiant in our disobedience. All of our Actions say, “No.”
Everything that we do tells God that we don’t trust Him to take care of us, to truly be there when we need Him. In Jeremiah God tells his people that no matter what they have gone through, no matter what they have done it is not too late to return to a relationship with Him.
In verse 11 He reassures us that he does have a plan for our lives and that we can trust Him to bring us through. All of Gods plans are for our benefit, He offers us a huge life, beyond anything that we can think or imagine. Everything that God has planned for us is to give us a life and a hope. A life that is better than the one that we have fashioned for ourselves and a hope grounded not in our finite abilities but in Him.
It is wonderful that we hold on to favorite passages of the Bible. God’s word has the ability to comfort us and to guide us but if we are going to hold on to them we have to realize what the verses mean. Jeremiah 29:11 is one of those verses that we love. God promise the people of Israel that he has a plan for them and that the plan is wonderful but to really understand the passage we have to understand the context of the passage.
The whole book of Jeremiah is Gods message to His people to return to Him. God’s people were disobedient, they were chasing after other gods, they were ignoring their commitments to other believers, and they were giving lip service to their relationship with God. They were saying No to God.
In the middle of the Book we have this wonderful promise from God telling his people that He has this wonderful plan for their lives. There is a catch; if we stop at verse 11 we miss the conditions for the promise. God says that He has a wonderful life planed out for us but we have come to Him if we want it. We have to return to Him, we have to seek Him with all of our hearts, and then and only then will He bring us back to where we had left Him, then He will restore us to where we were, He will hear us calling out to Him, He will hear our prays. If we want to experience the plan that he promises his people Israel it can only be had in relationship with Him, seeking after Him with everything that we are, on His terms not ours.
