Plans

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.   Jeremiah 29:11

I've never really liked this verse from Jeremiah.  It sounds as if it should be reassuring and comforting, but to me, it isn't.  I try to like it; I try to find grace in it, but I always ends up with the image of a God who is manipulating what happens to us.  I hear people saying, "It is all in God's plan."  Someone dies, and it is in God's plan.  A job is lost, a car is wrecked, a child fails, and it is all in God's plan.

And yet, I believe in a God who is loving and caring, full of grace.  The idea that he would plan for a death does not compute with a loving God.

I saw the movie Adjustment Bureau today.  It brought all of these ideas to my mind again.  It is based on the idea that there is a plan, and when we step out of the plan, we are adjusted back into it.

Hmmm. 

I really believe that free will is part of our creation and that we have a loving, caring God.