11 For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. 12 ‘Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.’ Jeremiah 29:11–13
These verses rank high on any list for naming and claiming. Taken out of context, as they usually are, there’s a great deal of comfort and hope in them in times of trial and tribulation. They teach us to seek the Lord in prayer, to search for him with all our heart, and he will be found. And if you cut short the following verse 14, you’ll be happy to expect your fortunes to be restored (‘I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will restore your fortunes.’).
Then a wise (guy) preacher comes along to remind you these promises were for a disobedient Israel exiled in Babylon, which would ultimately be restored to their land, whose wall and temple would be rebuilt. In the meantime, they were to thrive where they were planted until 70 years had transpired.
But the verses that follow these describe a Jerusalem that does not match the city limits that Nehemiah’s wall encompassed, or the city in which the Lord Jesus entered triumphantly on the back of a donkey.
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when the city will be rebuilt for the Lord from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate…It will not be plucked up or overthrown anymore forever.” Jeremiah 31:38-40
From our perspective, the Jerusalem we know of is divided, perennially under siege, and has no temple, yet our future and hope is now bound up in the promises of Jesus, who saves us rather than traps us in an untenable position, that of constant obedience to the law rather than enjoying the grace he has lavished upon us through our faith in him.
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He has lavished on us. Ephesians 1:7-8
But Jeremiah also foretells that the people of Israel, albeit a remnant thereof, would enjoy a new promise, a New Covenant.
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Jeremiah 31:31,33
So in my mind it’s safe to take Jeremiah 29:11-13 literally in the here and now, for Jew and Gentile alike, as there is nothing in the text that can be proven to be untrue for anyone who searches for the Lord with all of his or her heart. There will indeed be a future and a hope, for that has always been and will always be his plan, for those of us who believe.
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