Below is the text of the message in the Wheatland Parish Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. The scripture used is Jeremiah 29:4-14.
We are in the third week of our
sermon series titled, “Does God?” The purpose of this sermon series is to
answer some hard questions about life and God’s relevance to our lives.
This week we’re asking the question, “Does God have a plan for my life?”
Now, I want you to notice how we’re asking the
question here. We’re not asking if God
has some overall plan for the universe. We’re not talking about the
promise in Revelation that God will ultimately triumph over Satan and evil.
We’re asking if God has a specific plan for each individual. We’re
asking if God has a specific plan for your life and for my life.
It’s a question that really gets to the heart of the matter.
As we talked last week, it’s one thing to say that God will take care of
the world in general. It’s an entirely
different thing to say that God actually has a specific plan for me.
That’s saying that somehow, out of all the seven billion people on this
earth and all the billions that have been on earth in the past and will be on
the earth in the future, there is some specific thing or things that I’m
supposed to do; that God has something particularly in mind for me, personally;
that each one of us has some specific place within God’s grand plan for the
salvation of the world.
In looking at that question, I want to give you a warning
early on: I’m going to be talking a lot
about myself today. I hope that won’t bother anybody—I really do try not
to do that too often. The thing is that when I think about today’s topic,
the main thing that gives me confidence that God has a plan for my life is not
seeing what the Bible has to say about it, as great and important as that is.
We’ll talk about our scripture reading, too, but the main thing that gives me
confidence that God has a plan for my life is when I look back at turning
points in my life and see how God was guiding me and influencing my decisions,
even when I did not know it at the time.
I think most of us have those turning points, those times
when we make decisions that will influence the rest of our lives.
Sometimes we realize that’s what’s going on, sometimes we don’t.
Sometimes we think we’re just muddling along, doing the best we can, and
it’s only in retrospect that we see how God was involved in what was happening.
That’s happened to me several times. As you know, I
came to the ministry fairly late in life. I was forty-seven when Wanda
and I decided that I would go to seminary and become a pastor. People sometimes ask me if I regret that it
took me so long to come to ministry. The answer is no. I really
believe that all the things I did before I went to seminary were God’s will.
They were a necessary part of the process. God was using those things
to teach me things, to give me some life experience, to give me skills that
would help me in ministry.
When I graduated from law school, it took me quite a while
to find a job. I was unemployed for a few months, got a temporary job
with a law firm in Mitchell, lost it, and was unemployed for a couple more
months. Then, all of a sudden, I had two job offers, one with the state
of South Dakota in Pierre, the other with a private practice in Laurens, Iowa.
I knew at the time that it was an important decision, but I
did not realize how important it would be.
I had no idea what was going to happen as a result of it. I thought I was just choosing between
jobs.
I cannot tell you exactly why I chose to go to Pierre.
When I got the offers, I prayed about it, went to bed, and the next
morning woke up with a definite sense that going to Pierre was the right
decision. It was just a feeling I
had. Now, though, I know where that
feeling came from. It had to come from God.
There’s obviously no way for me to know what would’ve happened
to me if I’d gone to Laurens. What I know is that when I went to Pierre,
things happened that changed me. I
joined a community theater group, which did a couple of things for me. For one,
it got me used to doing things like standing up in front of a group of people
and talking. More importantly, though, it put me in close contact with a
group of diverse people. In getting to know these people, and in becoming
close to them, I realized that there are lots of ways to look at life, and that
someone can look at life completely differently from the way I look at it and
still be a good person. I got a lot broader outlook on life and became a
lot more understanding of people.
I had no idea all that would happen when I joined the
community theater group. A friend asked
me to go, and I just thought it might be kind of a fun thing to do. God
was involved in that, even though I did not know it.
Most important of all, though, when I went to Pierre, I met
this wonderful woman named Wanda. God was involved in that, too.
First, God got me to Pierre in the first place. Then, God worked it
out that Wanda and I would work in the same building. Then, when that still did
not get us together, God worked it out that Wanda would move into the apartment
building next to mine, an apartment building that shared a garage area so that,
finally, we had to meet and get acquainted. It’s hard for me to even
imagine what my life would be like if Wanda was not in it. I know that I
would not be where I am now without her. Without my knowing it, God was
working in my life to put this incredible woman in it.
After Wanda and I had been married a couple of years, I got
a call from a lawyer named Casey Bridgman in Wessington Springs, South Dakota,
asking if I’d be interested in moving there and working with him. This
call came from out of the blue. Wanda
and I were happy in Pierre, and were not particularly looking to move.
The more we thought about it and prayed about it, though, the more it
just seemed right. Again, there was nothing we can specifically point to
for why we thought it was right; it was just a feeling. Again, that was a
feeling that had to come from God, whether we knew it or not.
And again, when we moved to Wessington Springs, things
happened that changed us. I did things as a lawyer that I never would
have done had I stayed in Pierre, such as conducting jury trials and arguing in
front of the State Supreme Court. Also, as a lawyer in a small town, I
got involved in the lives of lots of people. I began to realize the
things that we all have in common, the struggles we all have in life, the
things we all go through. I got so much more of an understanding of
people, and how we really are not all that different in what we deal with and
what we want out of life.
Most importantly, though, I got much more deeply involved in
the church in Wessington Springs. I’d always been involved to some
extent, but there I got much more involved. I served on committees.
I chaired the administrative council. I was the lay leader. I
became a lay speaker. We started visiting shut-ins. Gradually,
through all that, Wanda and I both started to realize that things like that
were the things that were giving us satisfaction in life. Our jobs had
become just things we had to do to pay the bills. Ministry was what God was
actually leading us to do.
Once again, we had no idea all that was going to happen when
we decided to move to Wessington Springs. We thought we were just making
a decision about jobs. Instead, God was taking us farther down the path
that led to ministry.
There are lots of other things I could point to in my life,
times when God was working even though I did not know it. The point,
though, is that God has been active in my life for a long time. Even
before I was born, God was doing things that led me to be who I am. God
was doing that even when I did not realize it. Even when I was
unemployed, even when I was depressed, even when I was lonely, even when I
wondered where God was, God had a plan for me, and God was guiding me and
influencing me.
I’m not saying all this because I’m anything special.
In fact, it’s just the opposite. I’m saying it because I’m not anything
special at all. There’s no reason God would care any more about me than
God cares about you. If God is doing
these things in my life, God is doing things in your life, too. That’s
true even if you don’t realize it. That’s true no matter what you’re
going through right now. Even if you’re depressed, even if you’re lonely,
even if you’re wondering where God is, God has a plan for your life and is
guiding you and influencing your life.
In our scripture reading for today—I told you I’d get to
it—the people of Israel were being taken away from Jerusalem. Israel had
been taken over by Babylon. The people of Israel did not understand what
was going on. They were God’s chosen people. God had promised to take
care of them. Now, they were being taken away, forcibly removed from the
land God had promised them. They wondered where God was, if God was even
there at all, or if God had simply abandoned them.
God spoke to the people through Jeremiah. God said, “I
know you don’t understand. I know you don’t know what’s going on, but
it’s going to be okay. This is all part of the plan. I know it’s hard
to believe that, but trust me. Do the best you can in the place you’re
going. Make it the best place you can. When the time is right, I’ll
bring you back. This is all part of the plan. Everything will work
out if you just trust me, do your best, and don’t give up.”
I know almost everyone here is going through a tough time in
one way or another. There are lots of people in this parish dealing with health
issues. Others are dealing with family issues. Others are dealing
with other issues, many of which I probably don’t know about.
When we go through those things, it’s hard to understand
what’s going on and why. We wonder where God is, if God is even there at
all, or whether God has simply abandoned us. When we go through those
things, God says to us, “I know you don’t understand. I know you don’t
know what’s going on, but it’s going to be okay. This is all part of the
plan. I know it’s hard to believe that, but trust me. Do the best
you can in the place you are. Make it the best place you can. When the time is right, I’ll be there. This
is all part of the plan. Everything will work out if you just trust me,
do your best, and don’t give up.”
God has a plan for your life. God is at work in your
life right now, guiding you, influencing you. That’s happening whether
you know it or not. You may not know it for a long time, but there is
something going on in your life right now that, sometime in the future, you’ll
be able to look back at and say, “That’s where God was working. That’s
how God was guiding me along the plan for my life.”
God does have a plan for
each of our lives. God has a plan for your life, and God has a plan for
my life. If we can trust that, even when we cannot see what the plan is,
and if we just keep doing our best in the situation we’re in, God will guide
us. And someday, we’ll understand how those things that happened were all
just part of the plan