***NOTE: this is all opinion and what has been placed on my heart. I will NOT debate this topic.***
I've been working on/pondering/mulling over the right words for what has been on my heart now for a couple of weeks. It isn't an easy topic. Especially since I'm a guilty party. But I know that it's been put here on my heart for a purpose, and that if God didn't want me to process it, He would stop planting it in my head. All day. Every day. I decided this morning, after praying and asking God if He was for sure about me feeling and writing this, while Curious George is teaching Zella about recycling, the boys are learning at school and my coffee is still hot, that today is the day. It's time to talk about Jeremiah. Not the man. Not the book of the Bible. But that verse. That one verse that seems to be everywhere.
"For I know the plans that 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
It's funny how when God walks us through hard stuff we grumble, yet without us realizing it, we are moving closer to God. My whole Christian life (which is certainly apart from my whole 31 years) I have known that God's goal for us was to further His kingdom. But I never ever considered what our goals, as Christians should be for ourselves. Until a few weeks ago. Our church did a 3 part series on these big words that don't often get presented in church: propitiation, justification, sanctification. Propitiation is the satisfaction of God's wrath. In dying on the cross, Jesus "satisfied" or fulfilled the wrath of God. Justification is the miracle through which God declares the sinner righteous through Him. And sanctification is the life long process of becoming more Christ like. The sermon on propitiation restored my faith in the gospel being delivered correctly. How many preachers are talking about the wrath of God in the feel good, American church? Not that many. But it's real. We cannot acknowledge the power and might and holiness of the God we serve without also acknowledging that our sin, which is a slap in the face to His holiness and power and might, produces wrath. He is graceful. He is patient. He does love us. He has also written guidelines and instructions for us to live by. Direct disobedience, much like between parents and children here on earth, breeds consequence. That's NOT what Christians today want to hear. BUT it's true! Then on the day that sanctification was broken down, the pastor said "we are working, our whole lives, to be worthy to sit in the presence of the Lord". I felt like a light bulb went off while simultaneously producing shame inside of me. I've been living with the goal of getting to heaven, for the personal gain of sitting at His feet, while all the while, I should be working toward the HONOR of being allowed to sit at His feet. That should be my goal as a Christian. A life full of this sanctification process (that includes the hard stuff that burns off the nasty stuff) in order to create in me a heart worthy of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. How selfish I have been to want heaven, because it's just better than earth. So after I got that, I started trying to figure out how I got to that point. How did I ever imagine that the goal wasn't sanctification? What was it that made me reject the hard stuff in the name of it just being hard, instead of embracing it and thanking God that He was using this "stuff" to draw me closer to Him? And here's what I discovered......
I took the feel good bait. I fed into the idea that God only has "good" plans for me and that my human, American, worldly mind was able to define "good". And I failed to remember that my mind cannot even begin to fathom the depth, breadth, width, height, span of God, so how can I possibly define what "good" and "prosper" and "not harm" mean? Am I able to see from one end of creation to the next? How do I have any idea what is "good" for me or what will prosper me? I don't. Because I'm not God.
And here's where my problem lies. Why is the American church promoting God in a manner that defines Him when clearly our minds aren't capable of doing such a thing? I know so many new Christians that are walking through hard hard things and as soon as "hard" hits they shake their fists at God and at the pastors that led them to the altar under the ruse that God was "good" and that His "good" was defined in the same manner that sinners define "good". How are we standing in church with hands raised and "heart abandoned" but we are still refusing to acknowledge that if we were Kingdom minded, we would recognize that the good plans God has for us, His way of prospering us, His way of not harming us, is not referring to our life here on earth, but it's referencing our eternal life? HIS plan for good for us is purifying us to spend eternity with Him. His plan for not harming us is to get us to eternity where harm can no longer be done to us. His plan to prosper us to put is into the highest place we could ever reach, next to Him.
I have said to people as they struggle "but you know God says He has plans to prosper you and not harm you". I need to stop saying that. Because what it does is it diminishes what God is doing in their lives and makes Christians feel like something is wrong when they are truly just walking through the process of sanctification. Life gets hard. Does that mean it's "bad"? Not always. As sinners, we are historically awesome at screwing up God's plans. But what about the people that ARE walking in His will and ARE walking in obedience and faithful to Him? ONLY God knows a man's heart and the things that need to change in it. ONLY God knows the plans that He has for the faithful. We can't extract one verse from the Bible and feed it to people to sell a God that people don't want to follow when the time for sanctification comes. And it does come. When people say to God, "start a fire down in my soul, God!", He will. When you say "break my heart for what breaks Yours, God!", He'll do it. And how many people will bow out after He does because they can't see the goal is not "good" here on earth, but good for eternity? A lot. I almost did. I have shaken my fist at God. I have argued with Him and distanced myself.......and then crawled back humbly and begging for mercy. Because GOD IS GOOD. But He is so holy, that our definition of "good" can't come close to defining Him.
If you're walking through something really hard right now, and you're walking in obedience, consider what it is that God wants to burn off of you. Consider what your eternal goals are. Consider how God could be sanctifying you to make you worthy of His presence. Because He IS working in you. It might hurt. It might not feel good. We are not immune to tragedy. Any of us. Life is hard and sad and gut wrenching and confusing. But our emotions. Our reactions. Our everyday childishness. None of those things change that HE IS HOLY and He desires for us to one day be with Him. But we have to be pure enough to enter into His presence to ever be able to understand what His good and prosperous plans look like.
A God that requires nothing of us does not exist. He offers us eternal life. And peace. And hope and joy. He is our Protector and our Ruler. Our Father. Our creator. He is all of the things that people that are lost and lonely and desperate need and want and are searching for. He's the light in the darkness. But He requires all of us if we ever want to have all of Him. And all of us, means everything changes, or nothing will ever change. Ouch.
