10 This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 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. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.[b] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
Jeremiah 29: 10-14
This verse gets tossed around like some mantra on coffee cups and bumper stickers. It loses its true power because it gets caught up in prosperity doctrines. But I think it’s because they only quote verse 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.
It’s a great promise, but, pulled out of context, it becomes a salve to soothe wounds inflicted by wayward desires and blind faith in the world. Hucksters who use this to sell God’s grace as a calling to wealth and happiness should include the rest of the chapter when God condemns false teachers and provides a curse for His people to utter when they encounter those who sell false teachings under God’s banner:
Because of them, all the exiles from Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse: ‘May the Lord treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon burned in the fire.’ 23 For they have done outrageous things in Israel; they have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and in my name they have uttered lies, which I did not authorize. I know it and am a witness to it,” declares the Lord.
Ouch.
But the reality for me is that when I read Jeremiah 29:10-14, it drives me to tears.
God’s mercy on me reaches so far and so deeply that when I encounter Him in His word, I am crushed, not as a punishment but as a response to His love. The journey to a place where that happens has been long and full of many exiles. Times when, despite being saved, I was so far from Him that I don’t know if I believed He was there anymore. But deep inside, the spirit of God lived and loved me despite my faithlessness. Waiting through the exile to bless me and prosper me. I am not worthy. Because while I was so far from Him, He was always there. The challenges, confusion, heartbreaks and despair were lovingly used to jostle and sometimes jolt me out of my apathy and sin.
God’s covering is so rich and beautiful that it humbles me to see it and leaves me in awe of a God who so faithfully and forcefully pursues us.
