The people of Israel ended up living as slaves in Babylon because they disobeyed God and decided to do their own thing. And they paid a high price for it. They lost their homes, their jobs, their freedom, and their self-respect. The same thing can happen to us too. We can decide to go our own way, follow our own plans, and ignore what God’s asking us to do. Maybe it’s because we’re afraid to surrender our control to God, or because we think we know what’s best for our lives. But the truth is that God’s plans are best for us. God says: ‘The plans I have for you…are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me…I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes’ (Jeremiah 29:11-14 NLT). That means God has a plan for our lives. And if we seek Him ‘wholeheartedly,’ He’ll reveal those plans to us. God has a plan for every person He ever created, and it never goes out of date. God’s plans don’t have expiration dates. Sometimes we can feel that we’ve wandered so far away from God’s plan that we’ll never be able to get back on track. We may even feel that we’ve missed our chance to follow His plan. But even if we’ve gone astray and missed His plan for years, that plan can still happen the moment we turn our lives over to Him and fall into line with His will. His plan is so much better than anything we can plan for our lives.
