THE HERE & NOW

I love to run. It has been an act of release, joy and at points of my life a good representation of fleeing the issues I have sought to avoid. I had a wonderful run the other day, as I crested a rather steep hill my mind went to the scripture, Jeremiah 29:11 a verse well-loved which is often quoted and worn on t shirts and posted as inspirational quotes on our social media screens.

"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."

We like to think on this verse as the Lord wanting to bless us with things, to grant us better positions at our jobs or to give us a flourishing business or exemplary standing and clout in our communities. And these are all good things, but I wondered if something might be missing in all of that.

Jeremiah penned this verse at a time when the Israelites were living as captives in the land of Babylon. They were exiles after Judah, the southern kingdom had been conquered. They lived as a defeated people, enslaved and broken. The prophet’s message to them was not about a call of freedom, of immediate relief from their enslavement, it was not for some miraculous rescue but it was a call for them to persevere through bleak times.

As I crested that hill a realization came to me that God’s plans are not in the far off, they aren’t in a dimly-lit filled future that I can only wait and pray for. His plans for my good are in the here and now. And my prospering isn’t in a larger house, a well-stocked investment portfolio, or brand-new cars or a host of other material things and wants that we as comfortably coddled Americans hold our faith in.

No, the prospering is in the pain and through the pain, it is in the perseverance and isn’t in our comfort and a quick release from trial. Anything of important value, of great worth is never easily gained, it is never brought to us on a platter. Ours is not a trendy and hollow faith that tells us Jesus will make our lives easy and wonderful and that He will gives us whatever our hearts desires. Like the doctor performing surgery, He works through our suffering and trials with the intent to strengthen spiritual bone and muscle and increase the vibrancy of both mind and heart.

I see that plan in action in my life now. He’s given me a passion, words to speak and to write with, my faith has grown lean and strong, and the fear that has held me by the throat my entire life has abated and an ever-growing bravery has taken root in my inward man. It is actively present and it increases by the day. Even with the knowledge that my path does go against the current and with the understanding that what I share isn’t always popular in the greater Faith community, it may just be a road I travel alone. But what I have developed for this road was solidified by years in the furnace, with the perfecting that comes with the continual process of burning off of my dross. I have been made for this and I hold no regrets nor will I apologize for it.

My memory went back to a company I had worked for years ago, I had a good, long history there and I had been abruptly laid off. My confidence and trust were broken during that time and I was forced to find a replacement job with another design company while I licked my wounds. I struggled in that job and panic attacks flared up and I often mentally froze. Mostly when confronted with a bully of a manager that would threaten and yell, here I would seize up, not able to make decisions or know how to do. Each day, morning and night, Monday through Sunday I would pray and pray for God to help me. For Him to break the anxiety, for me to do my job right. For me to have stronger faith. But it only brought out the Pandora’s box of my childhood trauma I had worked so hard to bottle up.

I felt that there was no help to come, I felt abandoned and like I was still that young boy that hid in the shadows. As I thought on these things as I ran, I moved downwards on the descending slope in the road, a light breeze blew and my legs felt easier after the tough hill I just passed and these words came to my mind. “Your dreams are born of your failure.”

All that I thought was pointless, needless hurt and pain, all the doubts and hopelessness from my own plans and my own dreams that lay broken and crushed swept into the neglected and hidden parts of my soul weren’t wasted as I once believed.

It was never His plan for all these things to hurt and batter me. That’s a byproduct of a broken world that doesn’t care or offers slim hope to the hurting. God didn’t jump to my rescue as I thought that He should have. He isn’t a genie that is to come at my beck and call, that should ease and coddle me at my whims.

No, He is Lord of all that sees things from the bird’s eye view that I cannot. I hold my empathy because of pain. I have persevered and grown strong because of trials and batterings. I look on the world through my viewpoint as I do because of all these things.

He has given me a vision and He has given me talent, He has given me words with which to share myself in a unique way. He has refreshed me and given me strong legs and a strong heart to run my race. And I will not run it as other’s do because of my experience.

Your dreams are born of failure. Your prospering is born of resilience through trial and hardship. Your future is born of your own plans broken and lying in splintered tatters. Because in all of this, when the time is right He will reveal that He has been faithful to you all along. And along that way you develop the mettle and the resilience and if heard right, his prospering in the things that really matter.

Let us remember this too, Jeremiah’s message was not written to you specifically. It was not written to the individual but his message was for a whole people. So, in a sense, it is to all of us collectively. We of one heart, of one faith in a Good Father. We are in this altogether. It is a promise far better and bigger than one of us. And it is a promise that if taken rightly can tighten bonds and bring us together in love and equity... For such a time as this.