My wife and I eagerly awaited our son’s college decision. College #1 was about an hour away and most of his Cross-Country meets would be a drivable distance. College #2 was on the other side of the state, with his meets being equally far away. He liked both but ended up choosing college #1. During this decision process, I told my son that God’s path for your life is often (although not always) found in the most logical one. What I am equally convinced of, is that we serve a God so powerful and gracious, our wrong choice often will feel like the right one if we genuinely attempt to follow His voice. God’s Plan B can often feel like Plan A, and we don’t even realize until after the fact.
While that shows we serve an awesome God, it can also lure us into being satisfied with things as they are, ignoring that God has a whole other level for us . . .
a new, more luscious part of the pasture we hadn’t seen before.
It is dangerously easy to become satisfied with pornography & lust being a private part of our lives, lurking just beneath the surface while simultaneously going about our everyday life, appearing to have things together.
And God is so gracious & merciful that He’ll still bless us. So, we then think we’re living life as God intended, we may not recognize that we’re onto God’s Plan B or C or D or . . . Q or S or T or . . .
Jeremiah 29:11-13
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart.
This is a verse we see cross-stitched at Grandma’s, or on a small wooden sign on the back of her toilet in my case. As with many familiar verses though, they go from black & white to color when you zoom out.
Look at verse 1 of this chapter. God is saying this to the Israelites during a time of captivity. While theirs was a physical captivity, we can draw the parallel to being held captive by sin.
Next, look at the first word of the second sentence of the passage. The word ‘then’.
God has a plan,
a plan A.
When we recognize that, THEN.
Then we will be drawn to call upon and pray to Him.
Amid captivity, know that God has a plan for your life,
the best plan.
A plan of freedom.
Thoughts to Journal:
- In what ways have you become convinced that your current life, with pornography & lust lurking in the background is ‘IT’ for you . . . that it will always be this way, and this is all there is?
- What thought or behavior patterns need to change for you to diffuse that notion?
- Thinking back to the first day’s questions, what needs to change, day-to-day, for you to be on track to an Abundant Life in 5 years? Make a list.
Reading: