Reconciling our plans and the real world

“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.”    Jeremiah 29:11

Some of the greatest moments take place following our most stupendous failures and disappointment. Being humbled is the equivalent of being humiliated, and we much prefer the limelight to the black light that illuminates our mistakes.

God loves the humble, no matter how they acquire that mantle. Something takes place that can only be seen in retrospect. In times of difficulty there is a mystical bonding with Jesus Christ, a fellowship of Christ’s suffering that Paul talked about in Philippians 3. It is in the difficult time, the dark hour of the soul, that you begin to sense His presence in ways that you never encounter when you are bouncing from one victory to another. When you are skidding from one low to one even lower, you are made aware of the reality of God’s presence and the touch of Jesus Christ in ways that bond you in oneness of spirit with others you previously wouldn’t have considered worthy of your time and attention.

Out of what we think of as disaster comes a new kind of commitment, one born of simple obedience with the determination that you will serve God because He is God and worthy of love and admiration. You have ceased from your “let’s make a deal, God.” We revive the spirit of Job, who saw his family and fortune slip from his grasp, and sitting in dust and ashes vowed, “Though He slay me, yet will I hope in him” (Job 13:15).

None of us willingly chooses the battering and crushing of our hopes and dreams, yet for those who have been there and have tasted the dregs at the bottom of the cup, there is a richness of soul that is unlike anything the world has to offer.

“This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces corn – first the stalk, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” - Mark 4:26-29