I Have a Plan For You

Scripture

Jeremiah 29:11–14 KJV 1900

11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. 12 Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. 13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. 14 And I will be found of you, saith the Lord: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the Lord; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.

GOD HAS A PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE. Got that? Everything in your life is part of His perfect plan for you.

First, you were created for a customized purpose by a loving God who knew you before you were born. Therefore, no matter where you might be at this moment, if you haven’t yet found God’s purpose for your life, you need to stop what you’re doing and start looking.

Second, no matter how many good, bad, or ugly things have happened to you, God can still redirect your life to reflect His glory. And there is absolutely nothing in your past—or your present—that He can’t use.

Third, even though it might be foggy outside, and even though you might be a little unclear about exactly where God wants you, that’s okay. Maybe you veered off for a year, maybe even a decade or two. But that’s all right. If nothing else, the story of Joseph should tell you that a certain amount of flailing around is perfectly normal. When we come into this world—kicking and screaming—very few of us know exactly what we’re supposed to do when we grow up.

That’s okay—start where you are, right now.

More than anything, as God puts you back on track, He wants to give you a sense of hope. Only God-given hope will sustain you as you move forward in life. To use a fancy word, God-given hope is what I’d call a prerequisite, meaning you’re not going anywhere without it.

I have talked to any number of people who are living with a sense of hopelessness instead. “Am I ever going to get where I am supposed to be?” “Am I ever going to get it right?” “Is life ever going to work for me?” Most of these people have lost whatever hope they had. One little boy said, “Hope is wishing for something you know are never going to get,” and that’s what a lot of folks feel.

To get a better idea of where hope comes from, let’s take a look at this verse. God gave this verse to the prophet Jeremiah to encourage the Israelites as they went into captivity in Babylon many years after Joseph saved their nation back in Egypt. And I believe that this verse should encourage you as you move on in your own journey.

Jeremiah 29:11 KJV 1900

11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

Now, I can immediately hear some of you saying, “Hey, I’m glad somebody knows those plans, ‘cause I sure don’t!”

But listen to what the Lord is declaring: “And let Me tell you this,” He says, “the plans I have for you are not for bad; they are for good! I will give you a future—a tomorrow—and a hope.”

Have you ever seen people who have lost their hope” I certainly have. People lose their hope because they don’t see a future. Yesterday was bleak…today is bleak…and tomorrow doesn’t look any better. The weather report for your life says “No sunshine. One hundred percent chance of thunderstorms.” There’s nothing out there that has your number on it—nothing good, nothing dealing with purpose, calling, or destiny. It’s dark, and the sun is nowhere to be found.

But look at something else here. Jeremiah 29:11, which talks about God’s good plan for the Israelites, is found in a sort of bad chapter. This is not a great verse in a great chapter; it’s a great verse in a not so great chapter. So if you are having a bad life, this verse will fit right in!

Israel was in captivity in Babylon: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon” (v. 4). Verse 11 was written for people who had been placed in exile in judgment for rebelling against God. They were under the disciplining hand of God for their sins. They were being spanked, if you will. And to make it worse, the place where they were held captive was about as pagan as you can get. Babylon was not where the Christians hung out. This was a pagan pit—evil, idolatrous, and a terrible place to live, especially if you were an Israelite.

On top of all that, the Bible says that the Israelites’ own preachers were leading them astray. They were giving other folks false hope in the name of God. “Come here; give your tithe; get rich. You’re serving God. You’re not going to get sick.”

That’s false prophecy. That’s not true—never has been, never will be.

Of course God heals; of course God blesses. But to give people the impression that serving God means the end of all problems—well, that’s just a lie. The Israelites were in a desperate situation, in negative circumstances, under diving discipline, in a pagan land. And to make things even worse, they were being led astray by the very people they should have been able to trust the most, the prophets.

Yet in the midst of this hopelessness and discouragement, along come verse 11: If you’re looking for hope, if you’re tired of aimlessness, wandering, and meandering, this verse give your the answer. Because God looks at us in our miserable state and says, “I still have a plan. It’s not over. I still have a divine purpose for your life.”

But how do you—in the here and now, at this precise moment, wherever you find yourself, standing or sitting or even walking around as you read these words—how do you honestly know that God still has a plan for you?

The answer is amazingly simple: You’re still alive! God has a plan for every single person He ever created. a plan that never goes out of date. You’ve seen the milk at the supermarket, when it’s been on the shelves a few days beyond the date it’s supposed to come off. Well, you can be assured that God’s plans don’t have pull dates.

Even if you’ve missed God’s plan entirely for years and years and years, that plan can still swing into operation the minute you’re ready to step up and step in, with God at your side. Your plan might be somewhat modified from what it would have been twenty years ago, if you’d paid attention then, but that’s no big deal. God can adapt to fit anything that ever comes up, in every life that will ever be lived.

So let’s talk about “stepping up and stepping in,” which I urge you to do in three separate moves.

Step us in faith

Have you ever seen a blind man with a Seeing Eye dog? Now that’s walking by faith. A person who is truly blind can’t see the sidewalk in front of his feet. He can’t tell the difference between a six-inch curb and a sixty-foot drop-off. He might know where he wants to go, but his own two eyes won’t tell him when he gets there!

Nevertheless, that man believes in something. He believes that what his dog sees will be translated into some kind of reliable signal that will tell him whether to go, stop, turn right, or turn left. And he will pick up those signals by staying connected with a dog.

It’s a faith walk. If a blind person had to depend entirely on his own eyes, he couldn’t tell the difference between a tree full of leaves and a tray full of loaves. So why does he trust a dog? Because that dog has something he doesn’t have.

And it’s the same with you and God. I know it might look dark right now. I know it might be unclear exactly where God is taking you. It might even be pitch black outside, so murky you can’t see your hand in front of your face.

Why does He make you stop at the corner so long? Maybe there’s some traffic coming your way. Why does He seem to keep you stuck, delayed, hindered? I don’t know why, but I know what He said. God has the eyes of eternity that you and I don’t have. “‘I know the plans I have for you.’ I know you don’t know all the details. I know it’s not fully fleshed out, and I know that things can sometimes come at you so fast you want to duck.”

But God still says, “I have a plan, and I know how I works.” And better still, “My plans are for your welfare and not for calamity.” He says that His plans involve a future, they involve your tomorrow, and they contain hope for you.

God has your tomorrow covered even though you haven’t been there yet. God works outside of time, so He’s not held back by the limitations you and I labor with. He has already scoped out tomorrow.. And He has come back to tell you that He has the plan scoped out too.

“I know it’s dark, but don’t walk off. I have a future for you,” He says..

That’s why, just like the blind man and his Seeing Eye dog, you need to hold on and stay connected. Have faith. That way when God moves, you’ll know it.

2. Step away from your mistakes.

The stories of Paul, Peter, and Joseph should tell you all you need to know about making mistakes, as far as God and His purposes for you are concerned. The lives of all those men were filled with mistakes of one kind or another—with bad things and ugly things.

But God was able to take every single one and turn it around for good.

God sometimes works the same way in your life. If you bring Hime what you have left over, whether it’s good, bad, or ugly, He can dice it, chop it, put cream of Holy Ghost soup over the top, and turn it into something you never would have thought possible.

You just need to step away, turn it over to Him, and let Him do His thing. In the same way, I didn’t hover when my wife was reinventing my dinner. I knew everything would come out a lot better if I kept my hands off.

I’m not asking you to keep your hands entirely off your own life, but I am asking you to step back far enough to let God work without hindrance. And just like the blind man we mentioned above, you’d know exactly when to start moving again.

3. Step into God’s promise.

When God told the Israelites in Jeremiah 29 that He had a plan for them. He gave them hope. But hope doesn’t do much good in a vacuum. It needs a nurturing environment. He didn’t give them permission to take that hope and then just sit back and do nothing.

On the contrary, He told them exactly what He wanted them to do in the meantime while He was working out some of the details for their future.

Jeremiah 29:5–7 KJV 1900

Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.

In other words, get on with your lives!

You need to do the same. While you’re waiting on God to turn things around, seize the moment. He might not do everything in a single day, so build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat what you grow; become as productive as you possibly can. Don’t sit and do nothing. Do all that’s at your hand to do—maximize your potential.

A lot of us, while we wait for God, think we can do nothing when there is plenty to do.

The apostle Paul went to school as a young man and maximized his potential. He didn’t become a scholar by accident. Peter maximized his potential in an entirely different way, by learning from his failure. And Joseph maximized his potential over and over again, by trusting God and allowing Him to turn every ugly thing that happened to him into something good.

God did all the behind-the-scenes work by bringing everything—and every person—together at just the right moment, but Joseph had to prepare himself as he went along. He had to learn how to oversee his boss’s household, how to listen for the Lord’s voice, and how to manage the economy of an entire country.

Most important, Paul, Peter, and Joseph all had to learn to trust the Lord, how to work within His plan for their lives to accomplish what He had in mind for them. And ultimately, while they waited on Him they learned an awful lot by doing the very things the Lord told the Israelites to do

In Closing

God says, “I have the plans. Don’t go looking for the plans; look for Me. I know where I put them. You find Me, you’ll find the plans. You want to know your calling, find Me. I know it. You want to find your mate, find Me first I know where he or she is.”

In Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).

You don’t know which way to go..seek Him.

You are in pain..seek Him.

You are confused…seek Him.

You are tired of waiting…seek Him

What God initiates, God completes. But you say, “I’m in a mess. It’s the biggest mess anyone ever made. You don’t know my mess!”

There’s only one answer for that.

You don’t know my God.