Not too long ago, I was asked to teach the Bible lesson for a youth ministry I volunteer with. I was really nervous because I had never done anything like that before. I am great with one-on-one or even one-on-few investment, but teaching the whole group was way out of my comfort zone.
When I was given the memory verse to teach, I just wanted to die. It was Jeremiah 29:11- one of the first verses I learned as a Christian, a verse I have consistently relied on for encouragement and read a hundred times, a verse I have often pulled out of my memory bank in various situations, a verse plastered all over Pinterest, a verse that so many people can recite....
"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."
How on earth was I going to teach this one to little kids? There are so many big words! So I started to pray. I decided to break it down the best way I knew how and I wrote out a lesson plan. When I finished and looked at it, my only thought was, "Oh boy..." For the 36 hours between finishing the lesson plan and the actual talk, I tried to stop freaking out about saying the right things and about what the other volunteers would think of me. My prayer became, "Lord, let it be You standing in front of those girls and not me. Let it be Your words and not my own."
When the time came, I pretty much freaked out. I'm fairly certain I said, "God has a special plan just for you," about twenty times in five minutes and babbled in between. Now, I believe God is faithful, and I sincerely hope that the girls got something out of that lesson. Perhaps one of them needed to hear about a special plan twenty times. I may never know.
I do know that it was no mistake that I was given this passage to teach on.
I am a huge planner and I always have been. I write out elaborate hour-by-hour plans for my week. Taking the thirty minutes to do so on Saturday night makes me feel better, more in control. The thing is, not much on my detailed hour-by-hour schedule actually goes according to plan and I often find myself in a tizzy about mid-week. The awesome not-so-secret that God decided to let me in on is that He has already planned every hour of my life! And that totally blows my mind. Every hour He has planned is a precious gift. While keeping myself organized is good, I can't let my world shatter when God takes me in a direction I didn't expect. After all,
"My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord.
Isaiah 55:8
The other thing I realized is that God's plans are way better than mine will ever be, no matter how meticulously I plan! His plans are good plans full of hope, safety, prosperity and love. Just as Jeremiah 29:11 says.
Funny how God can take such a familiar verse and open your eyes to something new. He is good.
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