The New Year is typically packed with planning, vision boards, resolutions, and huge expectations! What I could achieve, that particular physique I could have by summer, how much I could make, the more I could own. The typical overestimations of what can be practically achieved in one year. For many of us, 2020 taught us a solid lesson of the uselessness of chanting the phrase of this being "your year", no matter the conviction, God's will must prevail. (Proverbs 19:21 Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.)

Out of a social desire to formulate an outlook, you wish to have for the rest of the year we often find certain phrases excessively used around the beginning of the year to remind and console the hearts of many persons facing hardships. Among them is the popular verse of scripture Jeremiah 29:11.

Let's give this word some context!

For historical context, Jeremiah spoke these words to Jews who had been living under the domination of the Egyptian and then Babylonian Empires before eventually being carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

For literary context, we discover from the previous chapter that Jeremiah has just pronounced judgment upon the false prophet Hananiah. Hananiah had told the people that God would break the yoke of Babylon, freeing the people to return home, within two years. While his message undoubtedly sounded appealing to the people, it was a lie and resulted in God removing Hananiah from the face of the Earth (Jeremiah 28:15–17).

What is a Plot Twist?
The Plot Twist is a literary technique that introduces a radical change in the direction or expected outcome of the plot or storyline.

When understood in context, we discover that the words of Jeremiah 29:11 were spoken to people amid hardship and suffering; people who were likely seeking an immediate rescue like the one Hananiah lied about. But God’s response is not to provide an immediate escape from the difficult situation. Rather, God promises that He has a plan to prosper them in the midst of their current situation.

We often associate plot twists with trigger phrases in a book or movie that say things like, “Suddenly”, “Immediately", “And then, out of nowhere”. A build-up to the climax to the turnaround. But the plot twists sometimes spin-off for the long haul.

But it is not always so! There are times when God simply wants us to climatize or adjust ourselves to the harsh environment we’re in because we’ll be there for a while. For this is where you’ll be formed into the person, He needs you to be.

Wasn’t 2020 the year of the plot twist?!

Throughout the year, we experienced unexpected outcomes. It was a New Year, symbolic of the end of a decade, a reboot of sorts maybe, a year that many had big plans for, but a year that had plans of its own. It was plot twist after plot twist, what was almost like a war in January, the phrase World War Three was trending, casual earthquakes persisting through to February, and a global health crisis by March. Every time we hoped and expected a turnaround for the better there was a different thing coming. But at the end of it all, we serve the God of the Plot Twist!

We cannot perceive what God is doing in a season before it is revealed to us, we cannot understand the reason it is the way it is. We’ll never understand how it will shift or turn; we can’t logically explain it.

What hard thing are you currently going through? Amid your suffering, cling to Jeremiah 29:11, but cling to it for the right reason: not in the false hope that God will take away your suffering, but in the true, gospel confidence that he will give you hope throughout it.

The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:7–10, talks about a thorn in his flesh that he desperately wanted to have removed. Like many of us, he pleaded with God. Three times he says.

His resolve? This is for my Growth and God's Glory!