What Are The Plans?

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.

In my house I have a sign on my wall that has this very verse upon it and I forget it’s even there but every now and then God will remind me to look up and He will say don’t forget the plans I have for you Karlee. My plans are to prosper you and to give you hope and a future.

Today I asked God what do I need to study today that will help me to understand you more and once more He says I know the plans I have for you. Instead of doing my usual thanking God I had questions. What are your plans Lord? What does this verse really mea? It’s like I had the common sense of what it meant but I truly didn’t understand what prosper was or what hope looked like or even what my future would consist of.

I am one of those that God really has to break things down for me to understand the depths of these verses and how they actually apply to my life and it’s not just words spoken. You know how you can read and your mind is not actually paying attention to what you are reading so you have to read it again to realize what you’re reading? That’s me majority of the time. I read it but a lot of times I don’t really read it. I get no knowledge out of something when I don’t pay attention to what it’s saying and I definitely get no knowledge out of something I don’t study.

Here I am saying God you say you know the plans you have for me and you declared it, explain to me what declared it means. Declares in the Hebrew dictionary means to prophesy or to speak it into existence. God has spoken something into existence over everyone that has breath. In Jeremiah 1:5 it says, before I formed you in the belly I knew you before you was born I sanctified you and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.

It says in Jeremiah 29:11, plans to prosper you. This word prosper means Welfare, Peace, Soundness, and Completeness. What is so unique about this is, you can take these meanings and say Gods plans are to prosper us in welfare, prosper us in peace, prosper us in soundness, and completeness and that is so true. God does want these things to prosper in us. He does want us to be sound and complete in our walk with Him and He truly does want us to have peace and for our welfare to be good as well.

The phrase, ” … and not to harm you…” Comes from the Hebrew word Ra’ which is pronounced as Rah. The meaning of this phrase is anything evil. So it would be like God was saying His plans will not bring evil on you. If you look in any Hebrew concordance Ra’ is H7451 but there is this thing called Etymology or in other words the Root Word and it will have a number to go to that will take you to the root of the word Ra’ and it is H7489 and the prime root of Ra’ is, Ra’ a’. As I looked at this definition, the only difference between Ra’ and Ra’ a’ is the fact that Ra’ a’ means to be or to do evil. My mind almost exploded with saying, you mean to tell me, God, that your plans for our future will not bring evil on us nor does these plans consist of us being evil or doing evil? What a beautiful picture of salvation right there. His plans are salvation every time.

Then comes the big question, what hope do we hold onto? Faith is the substance of things hoped for but what is hope? Hope is the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1) As I thought on this God turned the tables on me. Instead of me asking another question, God asks me a question. It’s a very important question that He asked me. He said What is your hope Karlee? I said that’s easy, my hope is that this world would be changed by you. It’s what moves me to push harder to learn all that I can. That way I can be prepared and ready to be used to help another through hard situations. If I don’t know anything then how can I help them.

Once you find the hope for something, you find out what your future looks like. If your hope is for your family to be saved, then keep that hope. It says without a vision the people parish. If we keep saying they won’t get saved, the chances are they won’t. If salvation is your hope, then that will be your future. Our hope is the only thing that will bring our future to come to pass. My Hope comes from the Lord. He hoped in the beginning that I would accept the call on my life. I’m thankful He never stopped hoping and wanting a beautiful future for me and you. This is learning how to be Kingdom Minded.