Life doesn’t always go as planned. A precious pregnancy ends in a miscarriage. Switching schools doesn’t end the bullying. Retirement plans are interrupted by a difficult diagnosis. A Christmas gathering includes an empty chair. Life doesn’t always go as we plan. But God says, “’I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jeremiah 29:11).

How do God’s people reconcile our hardships with this loving assurance? When harm comes, and hopelessness, what is God’s plan? When the only advent we expect is the sun rising on our grief or disappointment, where does that leave God’s promises?

Perhaps we are mistaking God’s promise to prosper us with a promise to pamper us. And maybe for a time, Mary and Joseph did too. Certainly, their engagement didn’t go the way they had planned. Suddenly, they were lead characters in God’s salvation story. God calmed their initial fear and shock by pointing them to an ancient promise. Mary’s impossible pregnancy was the first step in fulfilling what God had said through the prophet Isaiah an unfathomable 700 years earlier: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

Maybe Mary and Joseph figured that since they were now the caregivers of his only son, God would shield them from future hardship. But no. Instead of being pampered, poverty surrounded them. A murderous king pursued them. A sword of grief pierced their souls. Their child, God’s child, wasn’t spared either. He was betrayed. He suffered. He died under God’s judgment.

It looks very much like harm, doesn’t it? But look again. When Jesus came helpless into the world, he was a prophecy fulfilled. No number of centuries or circumstances could have stopped his birth. And nothing could stop his saving purpose. That tiny, helpless child would one day travel the roads of Israel looking for the lost. His foot would come down on Satan’s head and crush his power over humankind. His glorified body would step free from death. What looks like harm… is actually hope. Hope for his sinful parents. Hope for you and me.

What plans does God have for you? How many ways, seen and unseen, has he intervened in your life to bring about his will? How is he using harm and hardship to bring you (or those around you) hope in your Savior? How does his word of forgiveness change your daily trajectory? Maybe one day we’ll know all the details of how God is working in our lives to bring us and others to heaven. For now, we’re a bit like the preschooler who can’t stop talking about her upcoming trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s. She doesn’t worry about how she’s getting there. It’s enough for her to know the destination.

A heavenly home is in our future. A heavenly hope surrounds us now.