Episode #175 Dreaming with God Beyond Your Own Plans – Know You from God’s Point of View

Hey friends, it's Jen and welcome to this episode on Good God Talks. Today we're talking with God about dreams and plans, but this conversation is not so much focused on our dreams or the plans that we've created for our lives, but the dreams and the plans that God has for us.

Potentially, one of the most quoted passages of scripture comes from Jeremiah 29:11,

“’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)

And if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you know, I've talked about this particular verse in past episodes, because the context that's often overlooked when we're quoting this verse is the fact that it comes in a letter that the prophet Jeremiah wrote to the people of Israel while they were in exile in Babylon.

The chapter of Jeremiah 29 actually has as a heading in my Bible, “Jeremiah's letter to the exiles” and the Israelite people are going to be in exile for 70 years. The verses before verse 11 are instruction to build houses and plant gardens and to give their children a marriage, to make lives in the land of their exile, because as it says in verse 10,

“For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.” (Jeremiah 29:10)

To your land…for I know the plans I have for you.

See, God's plans for his people were not just in the land of plenty. It wasn't just in the ideal circumstances that God planned for their good. But he had good planned for them, even in the hardship of their current season and circumstance. And beyond that current moment beyond those decades that they were living through, God planned for their good.

He had dreams for what they would be able to experience for when he would restore them. Ephesians 3:20 talks about God and how he is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work in us.

Now it's good that we have dreams and that we make plans. I'm a dreamer. I'm a hundred percent a planner, maybe even 110%, but even my best laid plans pale in comparison to what my God dreams and plans for me and what his power is able to accomplish in my life.

In Proverbs 16:9 it says

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)

And so as you're hearing this episode today, I encourage you to reflect on some of the plans and the hopes and the dreams that you have for your life, but don't stop there.
God has dreams for your life too, and he plans for your good. And so let's take this opportunity to ask him a little bit more about it.

Now I'm going to be upfront with you. The question that I'm giving you today, I've been asking God as I've been prepping this episode, and I don't feel like he's given me a super clear answer on this. And that's okay.

I'm going to keep asking him the question, and I'm going to ask him similar questions that are related to this topic. The purpose of these questions that I give us on each episode is not to give you a scripted conversation to have with God, but to give you question to engage in the conversations that you can have with him and then to keep talking with him about it.

When he shows you something, ask him more questions. If you're not hearing him clearly based on a certain question you ask him, consider what else you might want to ask or what he's already shown you.

It's hard for me to recognize God's voice on this topic because I have so many dreams and I have so many plans and I don't want to overlay my voice over the Lord's and say, well, God's talking to me about these dreams because those are the dreams I'm really excited about. And so I'm continuing to press in and ask him for confirmation or ask him to tell me more because as much as I can, I want to be sure that I'm actually hearing what he is sharing with me and not just what I hope he might say.

And so here's our question:

God, what are some dreams or plans that you have for me that we can talk about?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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