God has led me to so many roles in life to which I never aspired.
I never planned to be a pastor's wife. The man I married was an engineer. Yet here I am. I didn't always want to be a mom and certainly not one of those moms with all those kids. But God gave me 5 incredible kids to call me Mom. I told God I didn't want to be a nurse, and he led me straight to nursing school. I went back to grad school kicking and screaming because I had no desire to be a nurse practitioner and certainly no time to work that into my life. But I just knew that was what God wanted me to do, and he wouldn't even tell me why. Blind obedience, he kept saying. I did not wish - not once, not ever, not for the briefest instant - to bury one of my children. Yet I did. At one point, I yelled at God, saying, Does this really happen? Do children really die? Yes, they do. God knows the plans that he has for us. For me. He has plans to give me a future and a hope. Plans to prosper me and not to bring me harm. Jeremiah 29:11 This verse is a favorite to many. It is truth. So much truth. But it is not written in the way we prefer to interpret it in our typical American fashion. When Jeremiah shared these words of God with the Israelites, they were in exile in Babylon. The verse immediately prior to our favorite one says, "When seventy years are completed, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise." Seventy years. Who will be alive in 70 years? Not the ones who heard the words future . . . hope . . . prosper . . . no harm. This promise is not about today. It is not about me. It is not about all the good things I want to happen to me and all the bad things I don't want to happen to me. God is bigger than that. He sees bigger than that. He wants things for me that are bigger than that. And he knows that when I begin to grasp some of that 'bigness,' and see beyond my own hopes and dreams for today, then I will call upon him and come and pray to him, and he will hear me. I will seek him and find him when I can seek him with all my heart (Jeremiah 29:12-13). But the key to verse 11 is in verse 14, where God promises to "bring [the Israelites] back to the place from which I carried you into exile." They will go back to their place of hope, the future they wanted. They will go full circle. And so will we. So will I. God will bring me back to himself. The most beautiful part of this passage for me is when I found that the word prosper in verse 11 is translated from the Hebrew word shalom. Shalom. My favorite word. My favorite concept. Shalom means completeness, peace, as it was meant to be. God does not have plans to harm me, but to give me hope beyond today. And beyond tomorrow. Through all the paths I walk in this life on this earth - many of which are not what I thought I wanted or even what I hoped for - he plans to bring me back to the place I started. Back to himself. Back to Shalom. God knows the plan he has for me; his plans are for shalom. Can you say the same thing? Blessings, Sarah
1 Comment
Shannon Louk
11/13/2018 01:57:23 pm
"This promise is not about today" ---- I love that. Thank you, Sarah.
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