To Give You a Hope and a Future

Life doesn’t seem to be going the way people around me expected it would go, or even the way I would expect for them. Living abroad is forcing us to recognize, or remember, that life is even less in our control than we realized at first, and completely in God’s. Circumstances often play a large part in showing us His will; sometimes dramatically, sometimes gently. And even when circumstances seem to take a change for the worse, it’s all in His plan. We must not become weary or discouraged. If our plans have had to change, what we were doing according to His will was not in vain, even if the job doesn’t feel or seem finished to us. We are comforted in remembering that God knows the plan of our lives. God promises us prosperity, and not harm. But we can’t get tripped up in expectations of what this prosperity or  harm may mean for our lives. Prosperity may not be the newest car, or endless funds in the bank account. Nor may it mean perfect health all our days, the children or spouse we always dreamed for, or the perfect job. But we do know that prosperity in God’s economy can mean a peaceful relationship with Him on earth—forgiveness of sin, and comfort in difficulties. Prosperity in hope. We don’t need to become discouraged in our circumstances when life seems as though it is spinning out of control, or taking a turn we never would have imagined for our friends our ourselves, because we know that it’s in God’s hands. We know He has promised us a greater hope than our finite circumstances, which is glory with Christ forever one day.

God’s plans are not always our plans, or the way we would imagine life to go. But He invites us to be a part of His plan: to be a willing participant in His sovereign will.

Once we are made alive in Christ, truly nothing can harm us. No illness, no persecution, no earthly difficulty. We are always safe in Jesus, because even when our physical bodies are no more, because of Christ’s victory over death we will share in this victory in glory with Him one day.