I have been preparing three lessons a week now for a while and reading my daily devotional. It just happens the devotional I am reading is right in the place where I am preparing. I always take that as a push from God to share.
Jeremiah 29:11 is familiar to many of us. “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.”
Nine years ago, this was our key verse for our future campaign. The context is quite
astounding. The people of Jerusalem have been taken captive and are exiled in Babylon. Their holy city sacked and burned, many they knew, family, have been killed. Jeremiah had warned them of this because of their disobedience, yet they did not repent. In preparation for captivity, God tells the people through Jeremiah to go there and “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters: find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage so that they too may have sons and daughters. “ Jeremiah 29:5-6.
It sounds to me like God intends His chosen people to be in exile a long time,
generations maybe. How does that lead to “I have plans to prosper and to bless you?”
Often in life we only see what affects us. Rarely do we see ourselves as a player in a much
larger, longer game, a part of a plan that takes thousands of years to fulfill. And yet that is
exactly what we are for God, a part of a much larger plan. Each person, each generation, each civilization all play a part in the plan. Our work today is to believe THE PLAN is to bless His people, no matter what our immediate part in the plan might be. That is called trust.
I want to encourage you to trust the Lord for His goodness. He knows what He is doing.
~Peace and Grace ~
Pastor Ernie