For when you don’t understand the plans

NBA stars. When my big boys were little boys that was their dream job. Or NFL running backs. They’d settle for either as long as it involved being famous and playing ball. Turns out genetics are completely against them in achieving this goal. The youngest one is still hoping it might work out for him, though. But we’re not cashing in our retirement plan just yet.

Remember how it used to feel like anything was possible. Think back to those days. The ones where afternoons felt endless and daydreams were full of ballerinas, ballplayers, and catching all the bad guys. You had so many plans; so many choices; so little time.

And then someone told you that you had to get serious. What are you actually going to do with your life?

What we want to be when we grow up is a hot topic at our house these days. My oldest is knee-deep in college applications and SAT prep. We’re really just praying he gets to take the SAT and that we can figure out the strangeness of applying to school without actually being in school. It’s a weird season.

But we talk about it a lot. Careers, jobs, future plans. Now, I am not one to lament my kids growing up. I’ll take teenage boys over toddler boys any day. But as my oldest bellows in his manly baritone that he has finally completed all of the forms for the Common App, I feel the whirring and slipping of time in a real way.

And I wonder what he thinks about this whole getting older thing. He has not mentioned his plans to play in the NBA lately.

Growing up never happens quite like we think it will.

Life has a way of teaching us that certain things just aren’t meant to be. And that isn’t all bad.

God works his purposes out for each of us in different ways. Some dreams he buries deep in our souls and they do become realities. Yet, others move or change to give way to new plans.

“For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you; to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart.” (Jeremiah 29:11-13).

I do love this verse. It’s the famous it will all work out in the end verse; a sweet and hopeful reminder that God has a plan for our lives.

And that’s great news.

Unless you’re standing on the shore of a dream that never came to be. Or trapped in the middle of a pandemic that has upended normal, kept you apart from those you love, and seems like it will go on forever. Unless the plans God seems to have for you don’t make any sense or feel like a maze with no finish line.

Well, then this verse can be a cruel reminder that you might have done it all wrong or that maybe God can’t actually see you here in the middle of this crazy world.

Here’s the thing about that verse, though. It loses its power when we quote it out of context.

That verse was spoken thousands of years ago by a prophet named Jeremiah. It was God’s promise to the people of Israel, his people. A people who were about to be captured and taken away from their homeland as prisoners.

Plans for good? Promises for a future? That would have seemed about as far-fetched as my kids becoming NBA stars. Israel became nonexistent. The temple was left in ruins. The holy places were desecrated. The people were scattered. The prophet who proclaimed this promise got thrown into the bottom of a well because everyone thought he was crazy.

And yet. And yet, God says over it all, “For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you … to give you a future and a hope.”

What plans? The people must’ve thought. What future?

And God goes on. “And then you will call on me and pray to me and I will listen to you … you will seek me with your whole heart.”

That was the actual plan God had in mind.

Not the perfect job. Not the 2.5 kids who excel at everything. Not the perfect marriage. Not the perfect college acceptance. Not any of it.

Me, God says. I AM the “good plans I have for you.”

God wanted the people of Israel to know one thing. Him.

You see, God’s plans always have less to do with what we become when we grow up, and more to do with whose we become. His plan for us? It is that we would grow up and become … his.

And these boys on the edge of real life wondering how it’s all going to go? I am not really sure how to tell them.College is good, a job is excellent, plans are needed.

But.

It may go sideways. It might get hard. You might become that NBA player … or you might never make a shot. You might always know what you want or spend years with no idea. You might have to start over a hundred times or just keep doing small things for a very long time. You might think that none of it matters or that you’ll never really find your place.

Growing up can knock the wind right out of you — even when you are a grown-up. And when it does? Remember this.

God does see us. God has good plans for us. Hear him whisper into your place today “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart.”

He calls Israel to rejoice from its ruins; he grows new life from a dead tree stump and brings salvation for his people from the very nation that he banished. Nothing is beyond him. Nothing. Not even you and me at our very worst. He is still able.

God made good on his promise to the nation of Israel. He grew them up into his people, again. And through them, he gave us the greatest gift. Jesus. Immanuel. God with us.

The plan is always to make us his.

No matter how long it takes us to find our way back to him.

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him” (John Piper).