“Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: Shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them. Send thine hand from above; Rid me, and deliver me out of great waters, from the hand of strange children; Whose mouth speaketh vanity, And their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.”
Psalm 144:5-8 KJV
https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.144.5-8.KJV
The Best Plans
Jeremiah 29:11 is a popular verse that’s often slapped onto journals, etched into coffee mugs, and printed on t-shirts.
“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
And God does have a plan for you.
God does want to bless you.
God does want to give you hope and a future.
But, we should also pay attention to the original context …
In this case, God was speaking through the prophet Jeremiah to the people of Judah—people who’d recently been exiled to Babylon for 70 years.
The Jewish people were banished to a foreign land because of their insatiable appetite for sin. In fact, for 23 years Jeremiah had been warning them to stop rebelling against God or prepare to face the consequences.
God is patient, but He is also just.
In other words, the Jews were sent to timeout. And as you can read in the preceding chapters, God made a case against His ...