A Hope and A Future

Jeremiah 29:11 is weird, there I said it.

“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.” 

We hear that verse quoted constantly and see it on t-shirts and bumper stickers and coffee mugs. But those words have never really meant much to me. They’ve often felt to me like a superficial quick one-liner meant to gloss over a hurt so we can move past the discomfort and pain. These words remind me of phrases like, ‘don’t worry, just trust,’ or, ‘it will all work out in the end.’

When I hear this verse, I start to wonder, ‘When will this glorious plan you have for me start, Lord? What will this future look like and will it match up with the one I have planned for myself?’ And because I admit patience is something I need to work on, maybe the most frequent thought for me is, ‘How much longer until the future You’ve planned for me matches up with the one I’VE planned for myself?’

While the words of Jeremiah 29:11 are true, my heart can’t quite hold onto them when I’m in a hard place. While looking longer and harder at Jeremiah 29:11, I at first felt confused, doubtful, and a little angry with God. But after all of that was sat with and waded through, the feelings of hope, comfort, and reassurance found a place to settle themselves down.

Let’s look together:

One thing often missing when this verse is quoted is context.

“This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.” – Jeremiah 29:1

The Israelites were far from home and I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that they were most likely feeling confusion, fear, anger, and possibly even despair.

Verse 4 goes on to say,

“This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat… marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage… Increase in number there… seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.”

Did you notice how God says that He is the one who carried the Israelites into exile? And then He tells them to make themselves at home.

Imagine if you were kidnapped and dropped into the Sahara Desert and God says to you, “Get comfortable in all of that sand. You know what? Build a house, plant a garden even! Go make friends with the kidnappers. Pray for them so that they succeed in everything.”

God’s instructions to the Israelites can at first seem mind boggling to us.

When I think of hard, painful things, my go-to is to grit my teeth, put my head down and wait for it to be over. To hate every second of it until it goes away.

My first thoughts during a time of hardship aren’t about any kind of possible growth or beauty or productivity.

When we experience painful things I think the most often asked question is, “What good could possibly be found in this? What’s the point of this suffering?” And then God speaks through Jeremiah to say these well-known words: “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.” 

We think, “Finally!” right? “Okay here we go, God is going to do the only thing that makes sense and rescue us to bring us back to our comfortable, safe, happy lives.”

Not exactly.

V. 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.”

70 years. Let that sink in for a minute. If you had a little child, they would be wrinkly and gray by the time they saw freedom from captivity. I know for me I would be saying, ‘Sorry, did you say seven?’ Even seven years would fill me with anger and despair. But seventy?

Wouldn’t a kind loving Father rescue His kids the very second that He possibly could? Except what if He is more interested in our sanctification than He is in our comfort?

My heart always needs to understand; I always want answers that make sense and that I can wrap my mind around. Because then I don’t have to trust. And I think a lot of us can say that trusting is HARD. There’s so much in this world, in my life, in the lives of those I love that I can’t make sense of. Some questions that we can’t answer and might not have answered until we are standing face to face with our savior.

The next part of this verse is equally as important for us in our attempt to understand.

V. 12,

“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you…”

Prior to their captivity, the Israelites were drowning in idolatry, children were being sacrificed, prophets stoned, and more.

Judges 21:25 says, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

We see again and again and again how God warned the Israelites and even pleaded with them to turn from their wickedness so that He could deliver them and bless them. But they said, “no.” Left to their own devices, the Israelites were destroying themselves.

From this perspective, I think we might be more willing to say, “How cruel it would be to let your children continue destroying themselves without doing anything to draw them back.” How kind it is that God longs to abundantly bless us but won’t do it at the expense of our sanctification.

Of course, things aren’t always this simple. We can’t always see the potential why as easily as we can in this situation. Sometimes we find ourselves in the middle of the desert for no identifiable reason other than the fact that we live in a fallen, sinful, messy, broken world.

Sometimes we don’t get an answer. And that’s where the trust comes in. Trust that He is so perfectly good and wise and loving and kind even when everything hurts.

What if God wants to do something better than rescue us from our suffering? What if He wants to use it? What if He wants to take our most painful experiences and turn them into something beautiful? Something that He can use to knit our hearts together with His?

I would rather be clinging tightly to the hand of Jesus than standing up on my own two feet forgetting how desperately I need Him. Even if it’s in the dirt. Even if it’s surrounded by enemies or feeling alone and far from home. Even if it means, hearing, “no,” over and over and over.

And I’m not saying my heart believes this all the time. I can absolutely assure you that it does not. But I want it to. So how do we increase our trust? We completely saturate ourselves in truth from God’s word. This might mean listening to worship music in the car or listening to sermons or a podcast as you get ready in the morning.

This means praying. Praying when you’re thankful. Praying when you’re angry. Praying when you’re depressed. Praying when nothing makes sense. Praying honest prayers to God, He can take it and He wants it. It means asking others to drag us to the throne of grace when we can’t muster the energy to get there ourselves.

“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.” 

The reason that this verse now gives me hope is that I know these words can exist and hold true in a desert. If my God, knowing specifically every desert I would ever sit in sits beside me in those deserts and declares again a hope and a future, then that’s good enough for my heart.