Jeremiah 29 Devotional

A Future Promised to Exiles

“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 future and a hope.”Jeremiah 29:11 (BSB)

Jeremiah writes to exiles in Babylon who are hearing prophets promise a quick return (29:8-9). God tells them something harder. Build houses and plant gardens. Marry, raise children, and see grandchildren born there. Work and pray for the good of the city where he has sent them, because their welfare is bound up with its welfare (29:5-7). The exile will last seventy years (29:10).

That is the setting of 29:11. God knows the plans he has for this scattered people: good and not harm, a future with hope on the far side of those seventy years. It is a promise to a community, kept on God's schedule, leading to a deeper gift. When they seek him with their whole heart, he will let himself be found and will gather them home (29:13-14). Peter calls believers exiles too, and urges them to live honorably among their neighbors (1 Peter 2:11-12). God's good purposes do not wait until you are home. You can seek the good of the place he has put you now.

To think about: What would it look like to seek the good of the place where God has put you, even if it is not where you want to be?