This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. 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 29:10-11 (NLT)]
Jeremiah 29 consists of two letters written by the prophet to the exiles in Babylon. The first (29:1-28) was sent to the recently deported elders, priests, and prophets as well as to King Jehoiachin, his mother, and the officials, craftsmen, and artisans who’d been taken as Nebuchadnezzar’s captives several years earlier. Countering the message of the false prophets promising a quick return to Jerusalem from Babylon, Jeremiah bluntly told the exiles that Israel’s captivity would last seventy years. This was unwelcome news and, preferring to believe comforting lies rather than the painful truth, people accused Jeremiah of being crazy and a false prophet. The second letter in this chapter addresses one of his accusers.
It was important for the exiles to understand both the reason for and the duration of their captivity and, unlike the phony prophets, Jeremiah was not about to give them false hope. If the deportees continued believing their exile would be brief, they’d fail to make lives for themselves in Babylon. Not wanting anything to hinder a swift departure, they wouldn’t acquire possessions, practice their trades, commit to marriage and children, or work the land. Moreover, the false hope of a speedy return to Jerusalem could cause the exiles to provoke their captors. Nebuchadnezzar was not about to tolerate insurrection and God wanted His people to thrive in captivity, not be destroyed in a rebellion! Rather than fall into despair at Jeremiah’s news, the Lord told His people to move on with their lives and put down roots in Babylon—to build homes, plant gardens, marry, and have children.
Jeremiah’s prophecy of a lengthy captivity didn’t leave the exiles without hope. Both their exile and release had been foretold and, once Israel repented and returned to the Lord, their captivity would end. The Lord promised to bring his people home after their seventy years of judgment; He would gather them and restore them to their land. Promising them “a future and a hope,” God’s plan for His people was for their welfare, not disaster. The promised future and hope, however, went far beyond a return to Judah and the restoration of Jerusalem. In Jeremiah 30 to 33, in what is called “The Book of Consolation,” we find prophecies that go far beyond Judah’s immediate situation and point to the Messianic Age and both the first and second comings of Christ!
While we never may be captives in a pagan country as were the Judeans, we can find ourselves feeling like “captives” in a location we’d rather not be, a situation we don’t like, or doing what we’d rather not be doing. The loss of a spouse, child, job, financial security, or physical ability can exile us to a “new normal” and leave us feeling like victims in a tragic story. God didn’t want the Israelites defined by their tragedy nor does He want us to be defined by ours. Like the exiles, we have a choice of how we respond to the calamities, heartbreaks, and loss that are part of this fallen world. We can give into bitterness, anger, self-pity, and despair or we can settle into our new normal, make the most of a bad situation, and claim God’s promise of “a future and a hope.” God did not forget the Judeans in their exile and He will not forget us in ours!
Most of us breeze through (or skip altogether) the Bible’s genealogies. Nevertheless, when genealogy and all those “begats” seem so important in Scripture, what explanation is there for the difference between the genealogies of Jesus found in Luke and Matthew? Because Jews were meticulous about recording genealogies, it’s inconceivable to have two conflicting yet correct lists of Jesus’ lineage.
The next morning, while Jesus and the disciples walked from Bethany to Jerusalem for yet another confrontation with Judea’s religious leaders, the disciples saw the tree Jesus cursed the previous day. The disciples had witnessed Jesus cast out demons and still a storm with a just a word but, when they saw the withered and dead fig tree, they were amazed. Normally, trees die slowly from the top down but this tree instantly withered from the roots up. With dead roots, no amount of water or fertilizer would revive it. Having witnessed the tree go from abundance to ruin with just a word from the Lord, rather than asking Jesus to explain cursing the tree, the disciples focused on the speed with which the fig died.
In C.S. Lewis’ children’s fantasy novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the youngest child, Lucy Pevensie, happens upon an enchanted armoire and steps into the magical world of Narnia. Upon returning, she rushes to tell her siblings of her astonishing adventure. Hearing such a tall tale and finding no concrete proof of its truth, her older siblings assume the story to be a figment of her imagination. They take their concern over her falsehood to their wise elderly uncle. He cautions them to use logic and consider Lucy’s story carefully. He points out there are only three possibilities: either she’s lying, crazy, or telling the truth. After pointing out that lies usually are more plausible than Lucy’s inexplicable tale, he asks if she’s lied before. The children admit she’s always been truthful. After pointing out that none of Lucy’s behavior indicates mental illness, they all agree she can’t have gone mad. He then suggests that since she’s neither a liar nor crazy, they could consider the possibility that Lucy’s story is true.
Our old friend Joe recently visited. Along with our friend Ric, he and my husband were partners in a manufacturing business in another state many years ago. Once a year, the three men would meet away from the business (with its phone calls and constant interruptions) to discuss their short-term and long-term business goals. While Ric and my husband were the legal, financial, and sales parts of the business, as a processing engineer, Joe oversaw manufacturing.
Devotions of the Heart 