Recently my morning studies had me reading in Jeremiah 29. When I was reading, I zeroed in on verses 4-14 and want to share my thoughts about those verses with you.
“This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of the people of Israel, says to all the people he sent into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses and live in them. Settle in the land. Plant gardens and eat the food you grow. Get married and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons, and let your daughters be married. Do this so that they also may have sons and daughters. Have many children and grow in number in Babylon. Don’t become fewer in number. Also, do good things for the city I sent you to. Pray to the Lord for the city you are living in, because if there is peace in that city, you will have peace also.’ The Lord All-Powerful, the God of the people of Israel, says, ‘Don’t let your prophets and those who practice magic fool you. Don’t listen to the dreams they have. They are telling lies, and they are saying that their message is from me. But I didn’t send it.’ This message is from the Lord. This is what the Lord says: ‘Babylon will be powerful for 70 years. After that time, I will come to you people who are living in Babylon. I will keep my good promise to bring you back to Jerusalem. I say this because I know the plans that I have for you.’ This message is from the Lord. ‘I have good plans for you. I don’t plan to hurt you. I plan to give you hope and a good future. Then you will call my name. You will come to me and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will search for me, and when you search for me with all your heart, you will find me. I will let you find me.’ This message is from the Lord. ‘And I will bring you back from your captivity. I forced you to leave this place. But I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have sent you,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will bring you back to this place.’” (ERV translation)
The first thing I want to talk about is how it’s clearly stated that God sent the Israelites into captivity. We need to recognize that our lifestyles and the way we choose to live can result in God sending us into difficult situations. In Jeremiah 26 God tells Jeremiah to go to the temple and deliver a message to everyone that comes into worship. Verses 2b-3 (ERV) says this: “‘Tell them everything that I tell you to speak. Don’t leave out any part of my message. Maybe they will listen and obey my message. Maybe they will stop living such evil lives. If they change, I will change my mind about my plans to punish them. I am planning this punishment because of the many evil things they have done.’” I believe that we get warnings from God when our lives are being lived in a wrong way. He doesn’t want to punish us but sometimes we just won’t pay attention. Think of experiences you’ve had when you warn your own child to stop doing something and tell them they’ll be punished if they don’t stop – yet they don’t always listen to us. You don’t want to punish them, but a good parent won’t allow the child to just indefinitely continue bad behavior. Our heavenly Father views us the same way.
The next thing is that when we find ourselves in a situation of our own making that isn’t necessarily a good, happy place – we need to make the best of it. We will be left there until we can learn our lesson. When we put forth the effort to do the best we can in our circumstances and pray about it, then we should find peace regardless of what we see and hear externally. Seek peace for your spirit until you’ve passed through this time.
Next, no matter how long we remain in the situation we were placed in, we need to remember that God does not want to hurt us – He has good plans for us with hope and a good future. If we will just stay strong in our faith, search for Him and call on Him for strength and wisdom, we will find Him. That will allow us to live peacefully no matter what is going on around us. If we don’t do this and allow our enemy to fill us with fear, unrest and resentment then we will be the losers and our enemy will prevail as the winner.
The Israelites were told to build, settle, plant and grow while they were in captivity. In other words, go on living your lives to the best of your ability, because in the end you will be rewarded for your faithfulness. That should be our goal as well when we find ourselves in difficult places.
Written by Karran Martin – August 19, 2023
[All bold and underline emphasis is mine]
Karran's Korner 