Jeremiah 45

This is the short message written on the back cover of my mother’s book about suffering: “After Ken was diagnosed with a terminal illness, I knew that our life as we had planned it was over. But then God turned our crisis into a grand experience, and He can do the same thing for you.”

I couldn’t help but think about this today as I read God’s message to Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to you, Baruch: You said, ‘Woe to me! The Lord has added sorrow to my pain; I am worn out with groaning and find no rest.’ But the Lord has told me to say to you, ‘This is what the Lord says: I will overthrow what I have built and uproot what I have planted, throughout the earth. Should you then seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them. For I will bring disaster on all people, declares the Lord, but wherever you go I will let you escape with your life.’” (vs 2-5)

I’m sure that, as Baruch listened to and wrote down the words of Jeremiah, he was filled with a sense of dread. I’m sure he realized that his life as he had planned it was over. You see, Baruch was apparently born into a well-connected political family. He was educated and had probably planned to hold a high office in the government.

But all those ambitions were ruined by the fall of Israel to the Babylonians, and I’m sure Baruch realized it as he transcribed Jeremiah’s prophecy. God had given Israel a terminal diagnosis, and Baruch saw that the future he had envisioned for himself was not the future he was going to live after all.

To a certain extent, I think all of us must face such a moment at some point in our lives. After all, each of us deals with loss, and we wouldn’t call it “loss” if it didn’t entail our letting go of something we wanted to hang onto! But, just as God told Baruch in this chapter, He is able to take all of those great disappointments and do great things with them! He specializes in turning crises into grand experiences, and He wants us to get excited about that.

That’s why I think He told Baruch not to seek great things for himself—not because God doesn’t want great things for us, but because the great things He has planned for us are usually absolutely nothing like the great things we plan for ourselves. Thus, when we invest ourselves in our own plans for the future, it can be harder to let go of what we want to make room for what God knows is best.

In effect, God told Baruch that things were going to get worse before they got better. Yet, He wanted him to have great expectations about what He was doing in the world. And that’s what God wants for us, too. If you’ve experienced any great disappointments lately, remember that those disappointments are really opportunities to harbor great expectations over God’s plans for your life!

For when our lives as we have planned them are over, God’s future for us has room to blossom—and we will find that the life He has planned for us is more incredible than we could ever have imagined!