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Are you a plan maker? Is your daily schedule itemized with checklists and procedures? If so, do your accomplished tasks bear real fruit in your life, or are they simply an end to a means? In other words, do your plans ultimately prosper you and not harm you. Do they provide you with hope and a future?
Many of the plans in my head are short term endeavors. Things like remembering to take out the garbage on Wednesday night, fix the cupboard door in my kitchen or finish the book I’m currently reading. Other plans are longer term such as repairing my fence once the snow melts or heading to the mountains for a much-needed weekend getaway. Plans do give us purpose, and it’s important to set goals and work towards the satisfaction of completing them, but I admit that making plans and fulfilling them are often at odds.
A short time ago, I was on an exhausting road trip for work. It was cold and snowy, and I was feeling downtrodden and quite honestly, without much hope for an auspicious future. My job was getting to me, and I kept wondering where God was at this stage of my, how shall I say, advanced working life. A long way from home, I passed through a small, yet familiar town. Missing my wife and feeling lonely as the snowy road passed underneath my winter tires, something caught my eye to the right. It was a building that I hadn’t noticed before with very large words emblazoned on the entire side.
GOD HAS A PLAN FOR YOU… JEREMIAH 29:11
Well, if that wasn’t a blatant God-Wink when I needed it the most, I don’t know what else is. Jeremiah 29:11 is one of my favourite bible verses and a go-to for times when I’m feeling down and unable to see any light at the end of the tunnel. This beloved verse wasn’t on my heart during that trip because I was so focused on my own wayward plans and I wasn’t mindful in trusting God’s master plan for me.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11 NLT)
In this crazy busy life, it’s easy to get caught up in making plans and trying to complete them. Again, there isn’t anything wrong with that, but it’s a far greater comfort to me that God knows what’s best and that he already has today, tomorrow and my future, your future, in his very capable hands.
As the bible billboard drifted by my passenger side window, I slowed down to snap a photograph as a reminder that no matter the plans I make, God’s plans for me are mind-blowing by comparison to my own. My dear friend, God has your future and mine intact—and those plans are for good and not evil. There is hope where our own plans may fail, and rest assure that God knows the plans he has for you like the back of his mighty hand.
The question you and I need to ask ourselves is this. “Are we willing to trust our lives to the greatest plan-maker in the universe? Can we rest in the knowledge that God has it all figured out? Okay, that’s two questions, but I know you catch my drift.
For myself, I will gladly climb aboard that heavenly bandwagon. Will you?
Paul Smyth
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