Home » Thoughts for the Week » What’s the plan? (20 October)

What’s the plan? (20 October)

Our Thought for the Week comes today from Andrew Openshaw, one of our Trustees serving on EBA Council and minister at Homelands Church

What’s the plan?

I miss using maps – maps for driving; maps for walking.

Maps are 2D representation of a 3D reality – not always easy to read, but they get the job done.

These days it is so much easier to use an electronic assistant than to wrestle with an atlas or an array of folder paper.

Emerging from Covid as individuals and communities we are all looking for direction and design. Much of what was – is no longer. Old certainties are absent – the landscape has changed…

This week at Homelands, the church where I have the privilege to minister, we are looking at a text from Jeremiah 29 – particularly verse 11.

“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” (NRSVA)

This very familiar verse talks about plans. A plan can be a map – for direction; but it can also be more like a blueprint – for design.

In context, this message from the divine cartographer is to a people in exile; where things were not looking good; where the future was uncertain and hope extremely hard to find…

Jeremiah doesn’t bring word of a quick fix either – what is being experienced will go on for some while yet – 70 years indeed in this case..

So, what does it mean for me, for us, for you. I hope we can be reassured by the fact that there is a map; a plan known by God that we can seek to follow for direction and design.

We might not be able to pull a map off the shelf or download it from www.theplanforme.god , but Jeremiah has, perhaps, the best advice in verse 12 and 13.

“Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord” (NRSVA)

Happy map reading!