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He Has a Plan! (Jeremiah 29:11)
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you afuture and a hope.’ Jeremiah 29:11[/perfectpullquote]
I read over this verse multiple times this past week. And each time I read it the word hope stuck out, as it may for many of you. In my weekly study I am working through the book of Joel, which is a book I have read countless times. Throughout the book of Joel we read of destruction and what seems like hopelessness for Judah and Jerusalem, but God gives them a chance. “If you repent, I will restore.” The message is constant and every time I read it the same word sticks out to me. Hope.
In the time when Jeremiah was writing this, Judah had already seen two waves of people being taken back to Babylon. The people in exile were listening to false prophets and given false hope. What Jeremiah has to say to them may not have been easy to hear, “you will be in this place for seventy years,” but it was the true message from God.
This is where verse eleven comes in. Even though you are in a tough place, away from home, away from normal, God does not leave you. God still has plans for you. God still had plans for them. Jeremiah told them to build houses, expand their families. Continue doing the things they do, just in a different place. He reminds them that in all things they should worship the Lord. And then comes the last word in this verse, hope.
A few years back, during the last recession, Sarah and I came to understand this hope even more. We had just celebrated the birth of our second child. Sarah quit her job to stay home with the kids, and our health insurance was changing. Of course, that was the perfect time for me to be laid off. Now what?? We were questioning all the decisions from the past 3 months. Through it all, we felt Sarah needed to be home with the kids and there we were.
Not having work I thought, “why not start my own business again?” When starting your own business it is all up to you, you lose the comfort of someone else giving you work and all you can do is trust in God and have hope in His plans. During that time, my trust and faith took a tighter hold. I could hope only in the Lord to get us through that time, and He did.
Hope is strong. Many people have survived on hope, and many have given up for lack of it, or because of where their hope is grounded. If you have become one of God’s children, you can rest assured in the hope of Christ. As Christians we have a rock, a mountain, to anchor our hope for the future.
I know that life may not look the same again, but I have a steady rock, that never changes to anchor my hope to. Do I know His plans? No. He has plans, He is good, and I can rest in that.
Art Mattes
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