The Plan

When you move abroad, you can without fail expect hear one question from every person you meet: "Why are you here?" This question always causes me to take pause. For me the answer wasn't very clear at the beginning. I had a myriad of reasons that could not be clearly and concisely articulated to a stranger. So without fail, in my hesitation, every single person interjects their own answer. "Oh you're so young, you just need time off to find yourself", to which I generally just agree so the awkward verbal exchange ends.

This answer never quite sits well with me either. The thing about searching for something is that oftentimes, you can never know what you may find or where you might find it. What results is a perpetual state of confusion, fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and even despair.


Take the following analogy:

Imagine you've been given plans to build a house. The person who gives you the plans is a world renown architect and a close friend of the family. He has known you all of your life. The knows what things you have now. He knows your plans to grow your family in the future. He knows what career you want to pursue, and he's even situated you in a place that has a great market for your profession. All of these thing are taken into consideration before you were given this perfect plan. 

You know nothing about building houses but you want to learn in order to ensure that you have built your dream home to perfection. So the architect tells you, "It will be a lot of work, but we'll meet once a week to go over new parts of the plan an check in on your progress." 

So week one goes great. The architect tells you where to buy all the materials. You write the check and continue on your way. Week two goes even better! He tells you where the best location for your home is and you visit the property. During week 4,  He helps you lay the foundation, and you are off to a great start. Week five, the two of you go over the plans and you start building. You recruit some friend and family to help you and you get the main posts up. 

But the following week you don't go back. You're discouraged because the architect hasn't let you see the entire draft. "What size will the kitchen be? Does he remember I love to cook? What about the living room? My furniture is small so I won't need that much room." With all these doubts and questions swirling around in your head, you don't continue to seek out architect who hold the plans. Instead you start shopping around for somewhere else to live. You haphazardly throw a few more beams up under the guise of continuing the plan but you're filled with doubt. What am I building here? Am I going to like it? Is this plan really for me, or was it originally for someone else? 

It looks a lot like the one he designed for my Mom? 

So you move on. You search for your dream home. Three weeks later you find you're still unsettled. You can't find anything that quite suits you. Six months later you decide to rent another house. You stay there for about a year, the whole time searching for other accommodations. Yes, you can search for empty homes but nothing quite fits. Over the course of 10 years you find you've rented 15 different places and nothing you've found seems to fit. 

Do you settle at this last home or do you petition the architect for his help? Would you have been better off building (creating) your home? Or is it better that you continue to try to find what suits you?

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.

-Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

Putting this scripture into context, we see God addresses the children of Israel through the prophet Jeremiah. God reminds the children of Israel that though they feel they labor in vain, they should  be encouraged that God has not forgotten them. They should be hopeful in that God still holds their destiny in his hands. Further, He warns them that in their search for answers they stand in danger of poor guidance from false prophets. Instead the Israelites are to  focus their efforts on building their own households, encouraging their own families, and maintaining their own faith. Finally, without revealing anything to them about their journey, He promises them that the fulfillment of this plan will free them and return the them to their lands. In order to make it to their destination, the Israelites are told NOT to search, but to build! 

This is just one biblical example of how God's character is much like the architect from the illustration. Although the architect had not revealed the entire draft, he made it clear to the builder the the construction would suit her needs. Similarly, although the Israelites were not privy to all of the details of their release and journey home, God made His expectations of them and His intentions to return them to their lands clear. 

In an age of individualism where 'self help' is a growing market people spend billions of dollars to in a search for a ready made identity. Contrarily, the Word encourages us that there is no reason to feel hopeless, confused, or powerless when each person has been given the tools and the authority to build his best life. The know that we are only truly lost when we disregard everything He has made us to be in search of what society deems appropriate or available to us. It makes no sense to spend your days searching for a ready-made construction, when you have been given the power and authority to build exactly what you want and need. There is a flawless plan for your life that was created by a master architect and accounts for everywhere you have been, where you are now, and exactly where you would like to go. Today my search ends and my construction begins!