I am a planner. Really. I was the co-owner of a Wedding and Event Planning Firm in Savannah, GA for five years. We engaged processes and procedures that helped our team plan events with unparalleled excellence. We saw the overall goal of the event and every detail needed to get us there.
I call that having the ability to see the forest AND the trees: the big picture and every little detail needed to complete that big picture.
Although we event planners can prepare ourselves and our clients for possible contingencies, we cannot predict the future. Will it rain in Savannah during hurricane season? Yes. Will it rain on the outdoor ceremony in Forsyth Park at precisely 4:00pm? Only God knows. We must be ready for anything.
God knows!
The Old Testament of the Bible tells the story of the Nation of Israel. Those folks just couldn’t keep it together. God gave them the instructions they needed for a life as God’s chosen people, but they just couldn’t keep it on the straight and narrow. At one point the northern tribes separated from Judah and Benjamin to create two nations: Israel and Judah. Israel was captured by the Assyrians, and later Judah was captured by the Babylonians.
During the Babylonian captivity, the prophet Jeremiah wrote them a letter. This letter included a message just for them from the LORD, the One True God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is recorded in Jeremiah 29. He tells them how to live during their years in exile.
This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, say to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.”
Jeremiah 29: 4–6
The people were not to languish in captivity. They may not have been where they wanted to be, but God was still watching them. He knew what was best for them, and it was not to sit and pout! Work! Learn! Grow! Serve! Get busy!
Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
Jeremiah 29: 7
God has great plans for YOU!
You work for the LORD, God Almighty, not Babylon. Work as unto HIM, not them. Are you in a job you do not necessarily like right now? God has you there for a reason. Do your best work. If the company prospers, so will you. You work for God; you are merely deployed to that company right now. Pray for God to give you a spirit of joy in a job you don’t enjoy.
This is what the LORD says, “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 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. 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 all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity.”
Jeremiah 29: 10-14a
God promised the exiles living in Babylon that He would bring them back from exile. He did not promise that life would be smooth or easy or that everything they did would prosper. “This promise was given to people who were living in exile as a punishment for sin, and the promise of return was actually for the next generation that would be alive when the 70 years were over” (David Jeremiah).
We often use Jeremiah 29:11 as verse to claim that God has great plans for us – and He does – but they may not be what we want – they are HIS plans; we are just a part of them. We need to stop worshiping the “God of my plans” and start bowing down to the God of the universe who knows all. He truly sees the forest and the trees. He is the ultimate planner.
“The promise of peace in [Jeremiah 29:11] is one of wholeness and spiritual well-being rather than a guarantee of material prosperity. Even in the midst of difficulty and divine discipline, the exiles had a hope that the Lord would bring good out of their situation and that exile was not God’s final word for Israel.”
David Jeremiah
When planning an event, hire an excellent event planner. When planning your life, ask “…Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20) for direction. God has great plans… just for you.
