Everyone has a direction. I feel like I'm just wandering.

Not knowing what comes next feels like being the only one without a direction. These words were given to people already in exile, and the instruction attached to them was not to wait — it was to build houses and plant gardens where they stood. The plan was known. Their part was the next ordinary thing.

The conversation

The child: “Daddy God, everyone has a direction. I feel like I'm just wandering.”

God: “I said this to people in exile. Displaced. Far from anything that made sense.”

The child: “What did You say?”

God: “'I know the thoughts that I think toward you... thoughts of peace, and not of evil.'”

God: “I know. Present tense. Not figuring it out. Already settled.”

The child: “But I can't see the plan.”

God: “You don't follow the plan. You follow Me. The plan is Mine to know.”

God: “'Build ye houses... and plant gardens.' Don't freeze waiting for the reveal.”

The child: “So I can start without the whole plan?”

God: “Abraham didn't know where he was going. He had the next step.”

The child: “What's my next step?”

God: “'Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.'”

The child: “I don't need the map. I just need You.”

God: “And I will be found by you.”

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." Jeremiah 29:11, KJV