From the Chaplains

‘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.’

As humans, we love to plan. We have amazingly powerful brains and we can use our brains to predict, prepare and plot.

Because life here at Pymble is so busy, we try to teach our students to be prepared, to manage their time effectively, to not be caught out by the next assignment due date.

It’s good to plan, and to think of the future.

But what I’m learning more and more as I get older is that God has a vast, eternal, cosmic plan that was conceived before I even existed. While I may have a certain plan in my head; for my own life, for my children, for my husband, for students here at school … God may have a different, and even better plan for us.

I find this extremely reassuring. The God of the universe, author of creation, has everything in hand.

While sometimes we want things to happen in human time – that is, now! – our lives are in fact part of a great, extended timeline.

But that does not mean that God is remote and far away from us. In chapel last week the students were learning that the Scriptures promise that the God of the universe, incredibly, has a plan for each one of them.

Jeremiah 29:11 says:

“‘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.’”

While the prophet Jeremiah was writing from Jerusalem around 600 BCE to the exiled priests, prophets and others in Babylon, the words are also for us now in 2023.

A couple of verses later is another promise from God:

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

So if life is wearing you down, if you are holding on tight to certain plans and feel frustrated, powerless or angry that work/family/friendships/life is not working out the way you think it should, I pray that you can seek God with all your heart, trust in the author of creation and relinquish your hold on those plans a little. And know that God has wonderful plans for each one of us, if we can just trust in that.

Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. – Hebrews 13:20-21

Edwina O’Brien

Assistant Chaplain