“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD , plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13
My family and I have gone through many transitions recently in our preparation to follow God’s calling for us overseas. In all our preparations, things have usually gone ‘according to plan’, but at other times our plans have had to change, giving us some anxiety and uncertainty. During such a time of uncertainty recently, the Lord brought Jeremiah 29:11-13 to mind during my devotion time. As I dwelt on this often quoted verse, I asked the Lord: You know the plans You have for us… But I want to know them too, Lord…
I wanted to know exactly what lay ahead of us. I wanted God to tell me exactly what to expect, so that I could plan everything out neatly. But God did not give me all the answers I wanted. Instead, He reassured me that everything was in His hands and His good plan for us had never changed.
“For I know the plans I have for you… plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
These are the assurances of a loving Father – that even though as His children, we may not understand His plans for us, He wants us to know that with Him we have a hope and a future, no matter how difficult or uncertain things may seem at the moment.
And more important than knowing His plans for us, is growing in our relationship with Him. “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart”. That is what God seeks from us, that we seek Him with all our heart… That we put our relationship with Him above all else, that whatever His plan for us, we learn to trust His heart. And it is through this faith journey with Him that we come to truly know Him and to find rest in His love.
So even though we may not know exactly what lies ahead for us as we follow the Lord, we can be rested to know that we are in His good hands every step of the way. As the words of a favourite hymn remind us:
Many things about the future I don’t seem to understand, but I know who holds tomorrow and I know who holds my hand…
By Jan Choo (YCKC Bulletin 6&7 June 2015)