Not an Exception

Many things are absolutely true, no matter what. Other things are true some of the time. Still other things are rarely true. One thing that's rarely true is that summer is a moderate, pleasant season in the Midwest. Although rarely true, that statement just so happens to apply this year in Wisconsin (so far), with humidity rarely being as sweltering as it often is, and with temperatures rarely getting much above 80 degrees (to those who are sure I've hexed us for the months of August and September, I'm sorry). 

Absolute truths abound in absolute consistency with God. One of the truths about our heavenly Father is that, as He promised, He is always with us and will never leave our side. Life's darker times tempt us to disbelieve that can be true or even possible. We have a hard enough time conceiving of God's quality of "omnipresence" (being in all places at all times), let alone how he'd want to be around some of us all the time - or at all, for that matter!

One of the most beautiful truths about God is something that he expounded to the Israelites through the prophet Jeremiah many centuries ago. In the book of Jeremiah, chapter 29, verse 11, God says to them, 

"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."

I think this passage ranks right up there in the list of most well known and beloved Bible passages, whether you know the Bible well or not. This is my wife's favorite passage, and its Scripture reference (Jer. 29:11) wound up on one of her license plates years ago. 

The truth behind what God was promising in this passage, though, is something that I have to realize again and again throughout life that I lose track of. When hardships are wearing out their welcome in particular seasons of life, the lack of self esteem we may have mixes with a twisted sense of logic about what we think we're seeing around us, and its result is like a chemical reaction of eroding spiritual damage. 

Yeah, must be nice for the Israelites....But God isn't doing that for me, I think. 

Maybe God uses crappy situations to bless others, but mine is just a mess of a life. 

He's turned the down times into good later on for those who really have something to offer, or those who have stronger faith, or those He loves more...but it doesn't look like it's in the cards for me. 

These thoughts have raged through the human heart many times, in everyone's life. When the foreboding clouds of darkness hang low over my head for a long enough period of time, I eventually consider throwing in the towel on hope, prosperity, or any kind of bright future. 

But have you ever considered what's taking place when deep cloud cover is pierced by the sun's rays, like the picture at the beginning of this post? Whenever someone sees that happen, they declare that heaven is literally shining its light down - it's that beautiful of a contrast. 

Have you, like me, forgotten how profound it is that the clouds' existence is the only reason that concentrated beam of light piercing through looks as striking and heavenly as it does? If not for the clouds cluttering the sky and temporarily - I say it again, temporarily - obscuring the view of the sun, there would be just normal, everyday sunshine permeating the sky. We're all used to that. 

Without the dark storm clouds of life that must hover overhead, at times so ominously, and for so long, we would take the sunlight for granted. Without the thick, enveloping shroud, there would be no hole through which the heavenly rays could beam down to remind of the beauty and illumination of the source of that light. 

This is a truth for everyone. 

There is no exception. I am not an exception. Say it with me: 

"I AM NOT AN EXCEPTION."

What God meant for the Israelites thousands of years ago in Jeremiah's day, when they were languishing through the oppression of the Babylonian Captivity, He means just as much for you and me. 

The human heart is a fickle and tricky thing. Its ability to emotionally distort the facts, and meddle with the processes of the mind that knows God's truths, is sorrowfully uncanny. In those times when my circumstances are penning me in, when disappointment breaks my heart, or when the guilt of my sin is feeling like a millstone tied around my neck, dragging me down to the depths of the sea, I must remember that Jeremiah 29:11 is for everyone, and that includes me. 

I am not an exception. The Israelites didn't deserve God's goodness any more than I do. Their history of smiting the Lord with complaining and idolatry mere moments after miraculous events was appalling. Jacob, another forefather of the faith, didn't deserve God's grace any more than I do. He tricked his father Isaac into assigning his brother's birthright to him instead, tearing a rift in their family for years. Daniel was a man whose heart had sin in it just like all of us, yet God saw fit to use his inherently miserable situation as a hostage of a pagan conqueror as a path to great influence. Abraham seemed to rarely trust God, and repeatedly lied to kings whose lands he passed through that his wife was his sister, so as to avoid personal harm, yet God always mended those disasters and allowed him to leave that country richer than before. Paul, in the years after Christ was on Earth, was one of the greatest persecutors of Christians and oversaw their malicious deaths, yet after his stunning conversion to the true faith, God used him to lay the foundations for the entire Christian church in the known world at the time, by way of his mission work. 

God is so awesome that he has forever and always been utilizing messed up, sinful people with messed up, sinful situations to accomplish His will for mankind, and to even bring good to the lives of those people who are smack-dab in the middle of the mess. 

Is your life a mess right now? Is there something about your world that just feels all wrong? I've felt that way too, often. I've felt a void. I've felt betrayed by life itself. I've felt unfairly wronged, and cheated out of the opportunities I once expected life to offer me. I've felt stinging remorse over my sins that brought me to my knees. I've felt lost and unable to hear the words my God wants to tell me, to help me see a way through it. I've felt....hopeless.

But God knows the plans He has for me. Even when my life feels like a cage and I'm captive to the circumstances I can't shake off or understand, behind the gloomy, confusing, scary clouds lurks the almighty purpose of God, waiting for His time, when it will be the right moment to burst through the shroud and illuminate everything with the beauty of His designs. 

His plans contain hope for you, and a future lived out in the sunlight of His mercy and blessing. His plans include joy and the warmth in your soul of knowing His peace no matter what happens. His plans include the satisfying growth of your spirit within, as you learn through these storms of life to just plainly believe that He is there. 

He has made this promise true so many times, for so many of his dearly loved children. He has done amazing things, and He will do it again. 

You and I are not an exception.