×

     I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jer. 29:11 (ESV)

     Dear heavenly Father, this well known, beloved verse simultaneously confronts us and comforts us. It confronts that part of us that wishes you would simply “baptize” the plans we make for ourselves. We’d write stories that include as little disruption and change as possible; few surprises and no suffering; tons of familiarity and predictability, and very little actual need for faith and waiting. In essence, we’d love for you to be more of a Sugar Daddy than Abba Father. Thank you for your kindness and patience with us.

     In our heart of hearts, that’s not what we really want. We don’t really want you to be the clay and us the potter, not really. We trust you; we love you, Father. You gave Jesus to us and for us; of course you’ll give us everything else we actually need (Rom. 8:32).

     It’s just that sometimes your plan includes things that, in the moment, don’t really feel like they’re for our welfare at all. You call our favorite pastors to new places; you send our kids to colleges ten states away, rather than only one; you give us new neighbors that are loud and boorish, and take the ones with whom we could weep and laugh.

     There are stretches when it seems like you answer our prayers with a disproportionate amount of “No’s” to “Yes’s”. Healing doesn’t come quick enough and funds runs out too quick. Instead of grace upon grace, sometimes life feels like disappointment upon disappointment.

     And yet, and so very yet, Father, we know better. So grant us fresh grace to wait upon you, for the future and hope to which you have called us—temporally and eternally. Turn our whines into worship, our daily carping into carpe diem, and our frets into faith. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’s beautiful and grace-full name. 

LOAD MORE
Loading