Hearing the (whole) promise.

 

Full disclosure: I love Jeremiah 29:11, even though I'm fully aware of how often the passage gets taken out of its prophetic and historic context.

Here, then, is what I understand to be the encouraging, inspiring, entire promise of God to a beloved, exiled people (many of whom would not live to see their homeland again):


"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. 

"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. 

"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,' declares the Lord, 'and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.'”

In other words: God never stopped having a plan. 

God never stopped being trustworthy.

God never stopped loving God's people, and never stopped being present with them in their suffering. 

Indeed, God continued to work faithfully and lovingly in the lives of the people of Judah -and even their captors!- right up until the day of their final deliverance.

Amen!