God’s Plan for Us

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Scripture: Jeremiah 29:11 (ESV)

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Devotion:

            These words of the prophet Jeremiah are often quoted but seldom understood in their context. They were written to a people recently exiled to Babylon. These exiles would have wondered what was to become of them. They had been sent to live in a strange land where they did not know the culture or the language of their captors. Some might have thought that the God they thought they knew who had promised their ancestors many wonderful promises had abandoned them.

            The Lord sends his words through the prophet to this dejected and depressed people. It is a word of hope and promise. The Lord speaks to the people telling them to seek the welfare of the land in which they find themselves. He declares that they are to take heart and believe that what seems to be a terrible defeat will one day be turned into victory. God has a habit of turning what seems like a loss into a win for his people. He never forgets his people completely even when humanly speaking all hope is lost.

            How can we apply these words written to speak to a particular people in a specific circumstance to our lives today? Though it seems as if these words may not be written for us today, I believe that they can be understood to apply to God’s people in the world today. In the modern-day western nations, there is an increasing sense that our culture has turned away from God and is seeking meaning and significance in ways that are foreign to us. Even though we have not been physically sent to another country to live as strangers. We feel like we are not at home in our own place and time.

            In our time of seeming exile God longs to speak to us. These words of the prophet can give us some hope in our time of distress. In addition to these promises to the Jewish people in exile, we have these words of hope spoken by Jesus to his followers just before he departed to be enthroned in heaven.

 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

            Jesus himself promises that he will never leave us orphaned and abandoned. His words are sure and trustworthy. Just as God promised his people so long ago that they were to have hope in their exile, so we can have hope for our future in the promises of Jesus. He will never leave us.

Amen. 

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