When Dreams Change

By Rev. William Dohle

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. To give you a hope and a future." Jeremiah 29

The song has been sung. The stage has been walked. The food has been eaten. The presents enjoyed.

This past weekend a large senior class walked across the stage, received their high school diploma, and graduated into the next phase of their life.

The ceremony was everything you could imagine. Four student speakers graced us with their words. A former elementary school teacher of theirs spoke. And the voice of an angel sang out with grace : “To Dream the Impossible Dream!” It was everything you would want in a high school graduation, for both participants and attenders.

Still, in the midst of graduation, as each of the kids were walking across stage and posing for pictures, I had to wonder where God would take them. As they leave or stay here in Columbus, what are God’s plans for their lives? What does God see in their future? What does God have in store?

I’m sure that was the question on the minds of the Israelites in today’s reading from Jeremiah. The Israelites, captured and exiled in Babylon, wondered what God would do. Where will God lead us now? Some said that God would come in a flood and wipe out their oppressors. Some said that redemption would come right away. Some of them dreamt no doubt of great things and massive rebellions against Babylon, their oppressors.

But Jeremiah comes along to crush those dreams. “That’s not what God wants,” he says. God doesn’t want rebellion, he wants peace! God wants you to, “Build houses and settle down, plant gardens and eat...Marry and have sons and daughters...seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile...”

Then...when your own dreams have fallen away...after seventy years are completed, THEN I will come and fulfil my gracious promise. THEN the plans I have for you will come true. THEN you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. When your plans and dreams are shattered...then I will step in.

I think the same thing will happen for each of these high school students today. They all, each of them, have a different dream for their lives. I know some of them myself. One woman wants to work in a mortuary. Another one wants to be a teacher. And still another wishes to be a counselor. There are lawyers in that group I’m sure and engineers. There are manual laborers and scholars. There is a whole host of different professionals there.

But what happens when that dream is fulfilled?? When the career is achieved and you’re looking now at a steady, nine-to-five job? What happens when you have the job? And the only thing you’re looking forward to now is summer vacation? Or what happens when it all comes tumbling down around your ears? When the job you hoped to have isn’t there?? When you’re left living in a house too small for your ever growing family? Or when the sweetheart you hoped to marry isn’t all that sweet anymore?

That’s when God steps in! You see, God has bigger dreams and bigger plans and bigger goals than we can possibly imagine. We look at this year and possibly the next few. God looks at the whole picture. And God’s goal is simple. He desires relationship. “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 will be found by you...”(Jer. 29:12-14)

God waits, it seems, until our dreams are dust before he steps in. When we are full of ourselves and our own plans for our lives, we have little room for God’s plans. But when things haven’t gone our way. When tragedy has struck our family and our friends. When we feel abandoned and lost and helpless. When our first marriage has come down around us and we’re stuck raising a couple kids all by ourselves, that’s when God’s plans step in. ‘Cause God never abandons us. Never walks out on us. And no matter how much of a failure we think we may be, God still thinks the world of us.

So, print this devotion out for your high schooler. Give it to them when their direction is faltering and their dreams are waning. Give it to them to remind them of the God who loves them and cares for them and watches out for them, even in the middle of their nightmares. Amen.