“Want to know a secret about the house?” She leaned in and said to me. My eyes grew wide as I nodded.
It was sixth grade and my family and I were moving into our dream house. Two stories, next to a farm, our own acre of forest to explore, and a pool. We were living large and excited like crazy to move in.
A few days before the previous owners moved out we drove over so Mom and Dad could talk “house stuff” to the sellers. My brothers and I came along for the ride hoping to get a chance to play in the backyard with the two girls who lived there. We had no idea that what they were about to tell us would radically change our free time for the next year.
“This house has a secret passage.” One of the sisters said.
My brother and I looked at each other, our eyes wide with amazement.
“Where?” we whispered back in awe.
“We can’t show you.”
“Why not?” we said defensively.
“We just can’t. We found it and you have to find it too.”
It was then that my parents called us and told us to hurry up and get in the car. UGH!! Perfect timing.
“Just tell us quick.” we pleaded.
“Nope.” And with that she made the key-locking-the-mouth-and-swallowing-the-key- symbol. You know how that is when you are kid- the final word has been spoken and silence locks down like Alcatraz Prison.
“GUYS—Lets go!” My Dad boomed. Just a few more seconds of stalling and we would be risking an appointment with the “spanking spoon”.
We jumped up and ran to the station wagon, determined the next time we saw them we would force them to tell us where the secret hiding place was.
Only, we never saw them again.
My brother and I spent almost every day for the next year looking for the secret passage. We looked under the stair case, in closets, we tapped on the walls listening for hollow spots, we searched every square inch of our house several times over. It was our obsession. We would talk about it incessantly, we would wake up early and search before we went to school and we whispered about it at night when we were supposed to be sleeping. We searched DAY and NIGHT for over a year but we never found it. Honestly, even now, at age 31 I occasionally find myself pressing on the knots in the floorboards when I come to Mom and Dads house for a visit.
So, if you want to know a really mean trick to play on someone—move out of your house and tell the new buyers kids that there is a secret passageway somewhere in the house and then never speak to them again.
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. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
I know a lot of people struggle to figure out what God wants them to do with their life. Many think He is like the girls we bought the house from, telling us something so incredible, yet too good to be true.
They are afraid. They think that He is hiding something. They think there must be a “catch”.
“If I follow Gods plan for my life He’s going to make me move to a mud hut in Africa, be poor and marry someone ugly…someone butt ugly.”
They think that God wants to trick them into following Him so he can torture them with His plan for their life. Like their life is one gigantic object lesson that He is going to use to teach them something.
Plans to Prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope…
What do you hope for in life? To fall in love, to be a success? Maybe you hope you can make a difference or that at the end of your life you meant something significant to others. These are the things that we hope for, that we long for, that we were created for.
Yes, you were created with a purpose, you were created for relationship.
“Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you…”
Created to know God.
You see, His plan for your life is not illusive- it was not meant to be hidden or veiled. He wants you to know this plan- even more than you do.
In fact, way more than you do.
I don’t know if there is something that is holding you back from fulfilling what you dream about and hope for in life. I DO know that if you let go of fear and seek after God you will discover a plan for your life that is so wonderful, so amazing you wouldn’t believe it if someone told you about it. (Habakkuk 1:5)
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
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