"Hope in a Strange New World"

Scripture Passage

Jeremiah 23:33-24:10; Jeremiah 29-31:14

Scripture Focus

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”  (Jeremiah 29:11 NLT)

Observation

When I was a youngster (I know, I know—every day it’s more incomprehensible that such a time existed!) John 3:16 was the Bible’s golden verse. No verse, I think, was ever quoted more.

That’s changed these days, and among the verses most quoted today has to be Jeremiah 29:11. I hear it all the time. I quote it all the time. But I am reminded again today that the context in which these encouraging words were spoken isn’t exactly the context we think about when we recite it to one another.

The best of God’s people have been deported—taken captive from Jerusalem and the surrounding area to Babylon! The royalty, the artisans, and the craftsmen—all those perceived to be useful in building a better, more beautiful Babylon—have been deported to that foreign land, and only the scrubs, bench-warmers, and rabble-rousers are “left behind.”

Under God’s direction, Jeremiah writes a letter to those who have been deported, affirming that they’re not coming home anytime soon—that it will be seventy years before God begins to return His people to their land. “So stay put,” Jeremiah says. “Marry. Have kids. Pray that God would bless that pagan nation of which you have been made a part, ‘for its welfare will determine your welfare’” (Jeremiah 29:7 NLT).

In *that* context—writing to a people in a land not their own, with no liberty of their own, and with no hope of any of that changing in the foreseeable future—Jeremiah writes to say…

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”  (Jeremiah 29:11 NLT)

Wow. Even in a strange land, full of strange customs, with a strange language, God still affirms that He’s up to something good. Even when homesick deportees learn they’re going to be there a good long while—far longer than they want—God is still up to something good.

Perhaps in our strange land—when culture changes more quickly than we can acclimate or understand, when the ground beneath our feet (so to speak) seems terribly unstable—perhaps even in our strange land, God is up to “plans for good…to give [us] a future and a hope.”

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