God's Plan for Your Life

“I know God has a plan for my life – I just wish I knew what it was.” We are quick to quote Jeremiah 29:11, and even quicker to allow that promise of God to bring us to a state of anxiety because we are afraid that we’ll mess it up somehow. Jeremiah 29:11 says: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” We read that and immediately envision one single solitary path among the millions of possible paths…and start thinking that if we miss that one single path we will miss out on God’s blessings.
I know. I’ve been there. Worrying and worrying about all the “what if’s” in my life. Using all kinds of bad theology to support my anxiety.
So, let me share a little bad news and then lead you to a new way to look at God’s plan for your life. Here’s the bad news…if we are going to claim Jeremiah 29:11 as a personal promise that God is making to each one of us, then it seems we must also claim Jeremiah 29:10 as a personal promise that God is making to each one of us. Listen to this bit of encouraging news, “This is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.’” If we are going to claim the good news that God wants to prosper and not harm us, give us hope and a future, then we must realize that he also keeps his promise to give us over to Babylon for a time so that we can learn to repent of our waywardness. The good news of Jeremiah 29:11 comes after the Israelites have spent 70 years in exile.
On top of this, God is not making this promise to an individual – he is making it to his collective people, the nation that he sent into exile because they had turned their backs on him and worshiped other gods. I will not say that we can’t take this as a promise to each of us – I do believe that this is God’s desire for each one of us. However, it is important to realize that even though he brought his people back out of exile, there were many who still suffered during that time. Not everyone got all of the exciting blessings that we imagine when we read Jeremiah 29:11 for ourselves.
Now, back to where I was heading when I started writing this – God’s plan for our lives. We all tend to get anxious about whether we are living the life we are “supposed” to live – did we make the right career choice, did we marry the right spouse, did we make the right move? May I direct your mind to another scripture as you think about all of these issues?
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.”
These are the words we read in Proverbs 3:5-6. If I read them thinking about which path I should take (out of the millions of available paths), I find not one single path that is pleasing to God, but a lifestyle that is pleasing to God. And when that lifestyle is pleasing to God, then he will take care of making sure the path is straight. It isn’t about choosing the right career, its about working for the Lord in whatever work you find to do. It isn’t about choosing the “right” spouse, but about making the decision to love your spouse in the same way that Christ loves the church. It isn’t about making all the right moves, but about serving God in those moves.
Live as I know it is full when we trust God with all our heart and let him worry about making the paths straight for us.

Neither

March Madness is one of my favorite sporting events of the year. Along with millions of other people, I print out a blank bracket of the NCAA tournament and make my predictions. And just like most of the other millions of fans, I watch the games agonizing each time my teams lose. This year is no exception...only this year the madness has been increased. Upsets of some of the top seeded teams have been common instead of rare. As a result, I find myself really enjoying the games while not rooting for either team. My kids ask, "who are you for in this one?" And I reply, "neither, I just hope its a good game."
Neither.
The word sticks out like a sore thumb in a world dominated by either/or's. How can you be for neither team in a contest? How can you watch two competitors and not be for either one? How can you not be one party or another?
I want to suggest that the politics of neither is a very viable option. It isn't a position of passivity or nonchalance. It is not the position of the lazy, but is instead a position of extreme clarity. Here's the beauty of neither:
"Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, 'Are you for us or for our enemies?'
" 'Neither,' he replied, 'but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.' " (Joshua 5:13-14)
Jesus would answer in similar fashion on several occasions. When confronted with a woman caught in adultery and asked if he would uphold the law of Moses or make a new command (for which they could then stone him, too), Jesus stooped down to write in the dirt and then turned the mob's attention back to their own sinfulness. (John 8) When asked if a blind man was blind because of his own sins or the sins of his parents, Jesus said, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." (John 9) Then he healed the man and allowed him to be able to see for the first time in his life.
It is time for Christians to begin looking for neither options. That is to say, it is time for Christians to start looking for God's will...which usually has nothing to do with the two options that are placed before us.
Life as I know it is filled with chances to take a stand on one side or another. But when we have the wisdom to side with neither and simply live as a soldier in the army of the Lord, it is so much better...