Jeremiah 29:11-13
When You Seek God with all your Heart You Will Find Him
11 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.12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Luke 23:32-43
Jesus on the Cross Between Two Thieves
32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed.33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”
36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”
38 There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
God wants us to seek Him...He has plans for each of us, and of course He knows the detail of the plans He has for each one of us...He gives us hope and knows if and when we will prosper and knows our entire future...We should seek Him and pray to Him continually...And when we pray He listens to us...When we seek Him we will find Him when we use all of our heart...And God does all these things in an unfettered way...He lets us make our own decisions and choices...
I sometimes wonder why God isn't more forward with coming forward with what He wants us to do with our lives...After all He knows what our decisions will be before we make them...This certainly would make life easier, and most definitely better, if we always did what God wanted us to do...But certain people would tell me that then we lose the free will that God offers and gives us and possibly love would not be what it is if we did not have free will and were always robotically doing what God wanted us to do...Controlling what you want a person to do is really not in the definition of love...
So instead we must seek God with our hearts...We must turn to Him and look for Him...Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it this way, “Jesus Himself did not try to convert the two thieves on the cross; He waited until one of them turned to Him.”...
And when the one thief turned to Him, latter that day, he was with Jesus in paradise...