God Has a Plan for Your Life

“I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans for your welfare and not your harm, plans to give you a future with hope.” (Jeremiah29:11)

It is clear in scripture that God’s work over the course of history relates to God’s plan for all that God has created.  This is to say that from the very beginning of time, God had a plan for us.  We are told in the Book of Genesis, that in God’s divine plan, God created heavens and earth.  God created the light and the seas, fish in the seas and birds in the air.  

 We can imagine God as a divine architect, thinking and planning and scheming as to how creation would look.  Or we might see God as a divine potter, with clay in hand, making and molding the world according the divine vision, the divine plan God has had for creation. 

And we find in the Genesis story, that as God observed that which had been divinely created, God realized that the plan for creation was not complete, so God decided to create humanity, and not only did God create humanity, but God created us in God’s own  divine image.

Indeed, throughout scripture, we find evidence of God’s divine plan at work.  We are told later in Genesis that God told Abraham to leave where he was, and that God would make Abraham the father of all nations.  God spoke to Moses, and told Moses to go to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let God’s people go.  We find in Matthew that over 42 generations, God’s divine plan was in effect, preparing the way for the coming of Christ into the world.  And we are told that Jesus arrived in the world in the fullness of time.

I believe we could all affirm that plans are important.  Plans serve as the roadmap, the GPS, for our success.  Plans are critical to us moving forward in life.  Someone has wisely suggested that if we fail to plan, we are really planning to fail. 

In a recent article it was suggested that there are five questions that each of us can answer that can help to make our calling – our purpose and God’s plan for us – clear - 

·        What am I here to learn?  

·        What am I here to teach? 

     ·      What am I here to overcome? 
     ·        What am I here to complete? 
     ·        What am I here to express?

In the book of Jeremiah, we find in the 29^th chapter the prophet here reminding the people of God of God’s plan for their lives.  Jeremiah reminds them with these words, “I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans for your welfare and not your harm, plans to give you a future with hope.”

Interestingly, these words rendered through Jeremiah from the Lord come against the backdrop of the exile of the people of Israel.  Here, the Israelites found themselves in Babylon – a strange land.  Here they were – separated from their homeland - alienated from their communities – cut off from their families.  Here are the Israelites, utterly broken and lost, and in the midst of it, Jeremiah seeks to encourage the people and give them some hope. 

Notice that earlier in this chapter Jeremiah had tried to encourage the Israelites in other ways, when he spoke other words from the Lord.  Jeremiah told them that the Lord said they were to build houses in Babylon where they found themselves, and live in them.   They were to plant gardens and eat what they produced, and start families in Babylon where they now were.   

Jeremiah told the Israelites further, that they were to seek the peace (the welfare) of the city where they now were.  In other words Jeremiah’s first words of encouragement to the Israelites were that now that they were in this terrible exile situation, now that they found themselves in Babylon and not in Jerusalem, they might as well make the best of a bad situation. 

Jeremiah might as well have said to the Israelites that they might as well live as well as they could, do the best they could in the present, because things might not get any better.

It’s obvious that these words of encouragement weren’t enough for the Israelites - they didn’t seem willing to settle for the present conditions they were in.  It’s obvious that somewhere in their collective conscious, they knew that God, who had been with them in the past, had something better in store for their future. 

It’s apparent that they were convinced that the same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – the same God who met God’s people at the Red Sea - the same God who met their parents at the Jordan River had something more in store for their future.  It’s clear that the Israelites, now in exile, knew that God had a plan for them that would move them beyond their despair and desperation, a plan that would move them beyond their disappointment and depression.   

Maybe that’s why Jeremiah was led to regroup here, for maybe he realized that he needed to offer some words not oriented to their present condition (where they were), but words that pointed them to their future.   So Jeremiah says to the people, “For surely, I know the plans I have for you” says the Lord, “plans for your well-being and not to harm you, plans to give you a future with hope.”

What Jeremiah was really trying to say to the Israelites is that God really does have a plan for your life.  Regardless of how bad things appear, God has a plan.  Regardless of how dark the days and long the nights, God has a plan.  Whatever you have gone through, wherever you have come from, whatever your lot today, God still has a plan for your life.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see the movie, “The Butler.”  What is most clear to me is that even before Cecil Gaines would become the butler for eight United States presidents – God had a plan for his life.

Raised on a cotton plantation in Macon, Georgia, Cecil experienced family tragedy that could have destroyed him.  But he escaped the plantation and finally made his way to Washington, DC, and in DC he learned how to serve people.  It’s clear that God had a plan for his life, and God made Cecil in the best servant, the best butler that he could be.

Maybe that’s why Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us years ago that “everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.”  God made Cecil Gaines into a great butler because Cecil was willing to serve people, and he realized that that was his very purpose in life.

“I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans for your welfare and not your harm, plans to give you a future with hope.”

I’ve come to tell us that likewise, the same God has a plan for your life.  These are words of hope and possibility for us – that our tomorrows will be better that our yesterdays and todays.