Jeremiah 29:11
“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.”
Do you understand the importance of obeying God completely? Sometimes He asks things of us that don’t make sense or may even seem crazy. These are the times I have to remind myself that God sees the whole picture, while I’m only catching an occasional glimpse of His plan and believe He knows what’s best.
Many times God has put a plan before me that was the exact opposite of my own. Recently, He asked me to do something I had said I’d never do, but I dove in headfirst anyway. When it became clear to me that God really did know best, I had an image of what our lives might look like if we could see them from start to finish.
What I saw was a large, black book. My name was on the cover and the pages were laid out like a date book. The day I was born and the day I’ll die were recorded there; in between those pages were the dates of appointments I had to keep in my life. Some of them were reminders written in black ink. Others were more important and had been written in red so they’d stand out. Still others were written in red and highlighted so I wouldn’t miss them. These were the times when God was saying, “HEY, DON’T MISS THIS. I HAVE WORK FOR YOU TO DO.” These, I realized, were the divine appointments God had made for me long before I was born.
At first I thought there were only pages for my life here on earth, but God showed me pages written before my birth, when He was planning me and my part in His creation. He said, “This is how important you are to Me and My plan.” This helped me understand that if God put that much effort into planning my life, that I should always trust Him.
He also showed me pages that came after I died, pages that never ended because they represent eternity. I learned from these pages that what I do here on earth will affect not only my eternity, but also the eternity of others. Remember, God sees the whole picture and only wants the best for us. It’s hard to comprehend that God wants to use us to do great and wonderful things, yet He will if we only say, “Yes”.