I have great plans for you

I continue to sympathize more and more with God. Not that I’m at all on his level. Or that He needs my sympathy, or any. But I think I understand a little bit of the frustration He must feel. Grâce à mes enfants.

This morning I woke up excited. My wife and I had planned to take our little ones to an old-timey circus being put on in a local park. I’d even put my son to bed last night with a promise of a fun day ahead. He fell asleep with a smile on his face. Waking this morning however, he decided that the only thing he wanted was to watch TV. While the rest of us were getting dressed and gathering our things to go, he was throwing a fit in the floor. “Wanna watch TV, wanna watch TV!” he yelled. I knew, and had even told him, that we had something much better planned. Something he would enjoy immensely more. But he wanted what he could see right then. Immediate satisfaction, easy, comfortable. My heart broke. I thought about how all too often I have great plans for him that get cut short or tossed out the window because he’s not willing to trust in my ideas and intentions.

And then I realized, ‘wow God must feel like this 1000x stronger!’ “I know the plans I have for you,” he said. “Plans to bring about prosperity and not disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

This verse from Jeremiah (29:11) is the most quotably relevant, but we can see throughout the Bible a common occurrence of God’s plans ignored or pushed aside by his children. Israel did it time and time again a few thousand years ago. Stands to reason that we’re not much different today, right?

How often does God have incredible plans for me - be it to use me, bless me, or simply allow me to see what He can really do - and I put selfish short-sighted simple desires in the way? How often I must throw a fit and yell at God “I don’t wanna go!” or “I wanna stay right here and do the same old stuff that I know and understand.” I’m thankful that at least a couple times in my life I’ve trusted, listened, and gone. My life on multiple continents has been an amazing blessing I would not give back for anything. My God-timed and God-delivered children have been a constant source of prosperity to my life and depth to my walk with Christ.

Speaking of Him, one Jesus Christ, I sure am thankful that He did as God asked. Every step of the way his words and his actions were of God the Father. In the last moments He cried out that He did not, in fact, want to go through with it, but trusted and did so anyway. He endured a pain that none of us will ever know, but also a joy that followed as He gave up his life and allowed for eternal communion with His followers.

My son eventually consented this morning to his parents’ plans and had a blast. Sometimes we know what we’re doing. All the time God knows.