God's plan

God takes the long view.

God takes the long view.

Lamentations 5

Ever since my first child was in her first year of life, I tried to live by a parenting principle I picked up from one of the books I read. It advised: Begin as you mean to go. In other words, that book suggests that parents begin training their children with the long view in mind. This way, training is purposeful and not erratic. For example, when I wanted Caroline to learn to feed herself in a certain way, I didn’t allow her to throw food onto the floor for three months before having to “re-train” her to keep her food on her plate. I started by never allowing her to throw food on the floor. I began as I meant to go. And I still do.

God turns great disappointments into great expectations.

God turns great disappointments into great expectations.

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.”

God often says, "Wait."

God often says, "Wait."

Jeremiah 42

As a mostly impatient person, I couldn’t get over the sequence of events in this chapter. After the disturbing events of last chapter, all the people left in Israel came to Jeremiah to ask for counsel from the Lord. They were so eager to hear His word, they made an oath to obey: “Then they said to Jeremiah, ‘May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with everything the Lord your God sends you to tell us. Whether it is favorable or unfavorable, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the Lord our God.’” (vs 5-6)

God throws pots on the fly.

God throws pots on the fly.

Jeremiah 18

You may have looked at the title of this blog and went, huh? In case you’ve never worked with pottery before, doing what Jeremiah describes in the beginning part of this chapter is known as throwing a pot. “Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold, he was working at the wheel. And the vessel that he was making from clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he made it over, reworking it into another vessel as it seemed good to the potter to make it.” (vs 3-4)

God helps those who...

God helps those who...

Isaiah 64

You can finish that sentence, right? God helps those who help themselves. But where did we ever get that idea? Certainly not from Isaiah 64. Here, he says quite the opposite: “Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.” (vs 4)

God is always fresh.

God is always fresh.

Isaiah 42

When I was growing up, I was sometimes accused of having a fresh mouth. And I must admit, I have a sincere appreciation of sarcasm. But when I say that God is always fresh, I don’t mean that He has a fresh mouth (although He is very adept at sarcasm). What I mean is that He is always moving forward, never stuck in the past, always doing something new.

God loves us in a big way.

God loves us in a big way.

Isaiah 38

I often tell my husband that nothing makes me happier than to hear those three little words from him: You were right. Such simple things can make a girl’s day! (ha ha) And I must admit that this was on my mind as I read today’s chapter from Isaiah. I imagine there are a lot of words we can say that would make God happy, and I think some of them were in this chapter.

God turns things around.

God turns things around.

Isaiah 35

Have you ever watched a movie about the struggle between good and evil that ended up with evil defeating good? I know I have. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a good example right off the top of my head, but I know that more than once in recent years, I have come to the end of a movie with a knot in my stomach because the story didn’t end well. What does Hollywood have against happy endings?

God gives perfect peace.

God gives perfect peace.

Isaiah 26

There are times in our lives when circumstances cause us to step back and realize just how fleeting life is and just how little control we have over the things that happen to us. This isn’t a reality we often face; most of us go merrily through the day, living out the plans we have made for ourselves, gleefully unaware that it could all come crashing down around us in a moment (although somewhere, in the back of our minds, we know it’s true).

God opens and shuts doors.

God opens and shuts doors.

Isaiah 22

In the last part of this chapter, Isaiah wrote about Eliakim, who was going to become the chief royal steward: “I will clothe him with your robe and fasten your sash around him and hand your authority over to him. He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the people of Judah. I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.” (vs 21-22)

God embraces hardship (and so should His followers).

God embraces hardship (and so should His followers).

Isaiah 20

Do you want to serve the Lord?

Are you sure? Think carefully before you answer!

Make sure you noticed this from today’s chapter: “Then the Lord said, ‘Just as my servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush, so the king of Assyria will lead away stripped and barefoot the Egyptian captives and Cushite exiles, young and old, with buttocks bared—to Egypt’s shame.’” (vs 3-4)

God has high standards.

God has high standards.

Isaiah 3

We hear a lot (especially in the church) about the reality of God’s acceptance. God accepts you as you are. God loves you as you are. And yes He does. There is no doubt about it! There is nothing we can do to earn His love; we already have it. But it is a fallacy to believe that God wants to leave us the way He finds us. It is because He loves us that He wants to change our hearts and lives for the better. As Max Lucado wrote in the extended title of his 1998 book, “God loves you just the way you are, but He refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be… just like Jesus.”

God designed love to be free and forever.

God designed love to be free and forever.

Song of Solomon 8

For me, this chapter holds one of the most beautiful passages ever written about love: “Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, he would be utterly scorned.” (vs 6-7)

God takes the long way home.

God takes the long way home.

Ecclesiastes 10

Solomon begins this chapter with an interesting proverb: “As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.” (vs 1) He’s saying that it takes far more energy to create something beautiful than it does to muck it up. And unfortunately, in this world, there are people who would rather spend their time going around tearing things down than building things up.

God made you for today.

God made you for today.

Ecclesiastes 3

This chapter begins with one of my favorite poems—the “time” poem, that there is “a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” (vs 1) At the beginning of this chapter, it seems Solomon has briefly turned his gaze from things “under the sun” to a perspective of things “under the heavens.” And I believe he comes to some very beautiful conclusions:

God's purposes prevail.

God's purposes prevail.

Proverbs 19

One of the proverbs in today’s chapter was very encouraging to me—very encouraging because I care about doing the Lord’s will in my life, but sometimes I question whether I really understand what His will is. That’s why I liked this verse: “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” (vs 21)