Articles
“God Has Plans For Us”
“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.”
Jeremiah 29:11
Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the most quoted and claimed promises in the Bible. We find it printed on pretty calendars, on coffee mugs, and even on interior walls of some homes. It’s easy to see why this precious word of assurance from God captivates believers. But do those who quote it understand its context? This is a surprising word of hope given to a nation under God’s judgment.
In Jeremiah’s day, Israel was suffering exile in Babylon as a just punishment for their flagrant rebellion against God. Jeremiah, who lived in Jerusalem, sent a letter to the exiles telling them to settle into their new lives in Babylon: “seek the welfare of the city… and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jer. 29:4-7). After warning them of the dangers of false prophets (Jer. 29:8-9), Jeremiah wrote that after seventy years God would rescue them from captivity and bring them back home to Jerusalem (Jer. 29:10). Then comes the word of assurance in verse 11. Despite the exiles’ present suffering, God’s ultimate purpose for them was for good (“welfare” = shalom) not evil.
Note that the “you” in verse 11 is plural (“you all”) not singular. In this text, God is not promising an individual plan for each person but rather a plan for his people as a whole. We see that plan worked out through history when Israel, far from dying out in obscurity in Babylon, returned to their homeland exactly as God promised.
Israel’s “future and hope” was bound up with God’s promise to bless all other nations through them (Gen. 12:3); their survival was crucial to God's ‘big picture.’ The proper response to such grace was not gleeful celebration or mere relief—“Everything is going to turn out okay, so let’s party!”—but heartfelt repentance and renewed devotion to God. When Israel would turn to God with all their heart they would find him and be restored (Jer. 29:12-14; cf. Deut. 4:29-31). At the end of those seventy years, Daniel, living in captivity, did exactly what Jeremiah said and led his people to earnestly seek God and his restorative grace (Dan. 9:1-19).
Understanding the context of this glorious promise helps us apply it properly to our lives. God’s plans for exiled Israel have been fulfilled. They paid the penalty for breaking the covenant with their exile and God comforted and restored them (see Ezra; Neh.). Now, under the New Covenant established by Jesus through which we enjoy the forgiveness of sins—another promise from the book of Jeremiah (ch. 31)—God wants us to know that he has plans for us as well, “plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Christians are also “exiles” of a sort (1 Pet. 1:1-2). Because this present world is not our true home, we live in constant tension within it. Though we are rejected by the world, we know that we are “chosen and precious” in the eyes of God (1 Pet. 2:4, 9-10). We have been called out of this world (Jn. 15:19) to live for the world to come (2 Pet. 3:10-13). Like the faithful pilgrims of old, we “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:16), “the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10). By faith, we await the “New Jerusalem” where we will live together with God — and without sin, pain or death (Rev. 21:1-5).
Like ancient Israel, we know that the period of our current state of exile will end because God has promised to bring us to himself: “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:20-21). Like Israel, we are not to squander our time in exile with inactivity, detachment or despair. We are to seek the Lord and the welfare of our neighbors by praying on their behalf (Jer. 29:7). In Christ, God has given us “a future and a hope.” We express that hope by loving him and loving others.
