God's Time and Plans

Growing older has had an incredibly positive impact.  The hindsight vision of God’s hand of plan and grace is mind-blowing and love-knowing when you realize where and how He has moved through your life.  It also eases concerns for tomorrow.  He’s already there.

We are preparing for ministry work in Durham, England. 

This is new. 

We are in our 50’s!

Jeremiah 29:11 is a popular verse and is often said alone. This is the King James translation and follows truer with the Hebrew in this verse. “ For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”  In other translations “thoughts” are translated to “plans.”  “An expected end” is translated in some as “hope.” 

An “expected end” is comforting and a promise to hold to.  It’s a certainty.  He’s there.

What is often overlooked is that these words are said to the Hebrew people in exile in Babylon and God has just said that they will be in bondage for another 70 years!  Even through the hardship, He has thoughts for them, plans that are for peaceful good.  When we feel like we are in the midst of struggles, hardships, even captivity keeping you from being or doing who or where you want to be, God is saying He is there and He will answer as His work and plans unfold.

The gonging of this reality hit me recently.  I was driving the car and marveling over an upcoming ministry trip, how God miraculously brought the request for us to go to England.  Also, the way God miraculously provided the means to do it. 
 We had asked for financial assistance from people because we were being asked to come when we did not have the means ourselves. Some help came, but it remained out of our reach.  God wanted to show that He was in charge and it is Him that we count on, not other people.  Miraculously, for one day, the price of the ticket flights dropped by $1,000.  We locked them in.  What seemed like God’s plan was coming together through Him.

On another day I was reflecting at the miracle saving of our marriage five years ago and the changes in my heart and my husband’s.  The new gifting I since then  received to understand His Word and be able to share it grows stronger every day in me.  All of it is only of God’s doing.  I marveled.  Now we are going to England to minister!

Almost high with joy, I asked the LORD what was He thinking when I was only twelve years old when He decided to fill me with the fullness of His Spirit at that age?  Instantly, a memory popped into my head.  I had written a story in sixth grade.  My teacher had called me in early to talk to me privately about it.  She encouraged me and said how good it was and that her husband was an English teacher and he was sharing it with his high school students.  I only remember this at all because she had taken time to call me aside to let me know and spoke well about it, encouraging me.

The story itself, I don’t remember, but I remember what had started it out.  I had written about a vision I had.  I was so young and didn’t really know what a vision was, but I wrote about it.  It was the opening and setting of the story.  I can still remember the vision vividly, but not the story I made up. I even think I tried to paint a water color picture of it that went with the story.

Walking down a city sidewalk, it was raining.  I was looking down at the water splashing around my feet with every step that I took as I hurried along holding my umbrella.  I was an adult woman.  Suddenly, a loud bonging started to sound.  I turned around and looked up to where the sound was coming from.  The clock tower stood tall behind me as it rang out through the pouring rain.  It was Big Ben.  My vision was in London, England.

As a twelve year old girl in the 1970’s, my childhood knowledge of England was centered around Davy Jones from the Monkees, The Beatles and Mary Poppins.  Little did I know that I would marry a man from England and that he would be a professional soccer player.  He would be the door way that would open a path forty years later.

My life didn’t stay attentive to God following those powerful, early, teen years.  But, God remained attentive and faithful to me.  He had a plan and His Call had been made long ago.  I never denied Who He is, but I denied living a life I knew He wanted. 

When the pregnancy of our daughter took place, that life impacted me.  I had an overwhelming desire  to begin living the life I knew was better.  I was moved by His power of creating and the sorrow for past choices had taken its toll.  I needed Him to give me peace, joy and hope and I knew His love for me through all of His mercy and blessings despite how I ignored Him.

The years that followed were up, down, and sometimes upside-down.  Surviving it all with faith in tact and growing stronger in it has been the training field for today.  A forty year preparation of experiences to know Him through it all and find Him loving, merciful, faithful and miraculously powerful is what I want others to know for themselves, too.  That He can take a moment and suddenly everything changes.  I even wrote a book about it.

Death to resurrection.  For us, it was our marriage.

He is life.

A new life.

So as the rains of His Spirit pour out and God’s time rings out for me to walk with Him in England, I have been shown the power of His good thoughts, places and times.  The knowing of this gives a boldness to move in certainty that He is with me and He will accomplish what He has set out to do. 

Look at all of your own struggles and things you have endured through His grace and power.  See Him in it with you.  If you don’t know or aren’t sure where He was, ask Him to show you.  Open yourself up to those thoughts and memories.  And when they come, acknowledge that it is by His Spirit that He has shown you.  Through the things He has helped you make it through is how you know Him best. 

He could have been your provider or protector, hope, healer, strength, guide, counselor, savior, comforter or all of them and more.  Look for Him.  He promises that if you seek Him with all your heart you will find Him. He sends others to be His hands here, too.  Are there people that were there at the right time for you in your life?

You have not been forsaken.  You have been allowed to know Him more.  His plan has always been to have a relationship with you. 

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.  Jeremiah 29:13