Do you ever wonder what God is up to? What is he doing with your life? Why won’t he answer the request you keep praying? Why is he letting you suffer? Why are there so many difficult people in your life? Why are you still struggling with the same stubborn sin? Why are you still stuck in the same boring job? What, if anything at all, is God doing with your life?
The people of God asked the same kinds of questions during the days of Jeremiah. They had been deported to Babylon. They were exiles living in a ghetto a thousand miles from home. Many had watched in horror as friends and family were murdered. So they wanted to know where God was in all of that. Why was he allowing them to suffer? Some prophets said this, and others said that, but nobody seemed to know for sure what God was up to. Why were bad things happening to God’s people?
Jeremiah 29 was written to answer that question. The chapter contains a letter from home written by Jeremiah, who was still living back in Jerusalem. The main point of the letter is that God knows what he is doing, even when it does not seem that way. His plans are always the best-laid plans.
Known Plans
One reason God’s plans are best is because God knows all about them. “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord” (v. 11a). God’s plans are known plans.
God makes and God knows God’s plan. This fact is stressed by the grammar of Jeremiah 29:11, where the “I” is repeated in Hebrew for emphasis: “I, I know the plans I have for you.” We do not know what the plans are, but God does. These are God’s plans for us, not our plans for God, or even our plans for us. God insists on his right to know and fulfill his plans, which is why the plans are so good. They are God’s plans rather than ours.
The God who knows the plans also carries them out. In the verses that follow, Jeremiah proceeds to list all the things God will do. “I will be found by you.” “I will bring you back from captivity.” “I will gather you.” “I will bring you back to the place.” God will do the finding, the gathering, and the bringing back. (To discover how God did all of this, read the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.) Since God made the plans and knows the plans, it makes sense for him to fulfill the plans.
When God says he knows the plans he has for you, it is important to understand whom he means by “you.” Christians often apply Jeremiah’s promise to themselves individually. “Terrific!” they say. “God knows the plans he has for me.” This shows how self-centered Bible reading can be. Jeremiah’s promise should be taken more than individualistically. It is not just a private promise. It is for the entire church. The “you” in “I know the plans I have for you” refers to the whole people of God. Before thinking about what the promise means for you, think about what it means for us.
In Jeremiah’s case, the promise of return was for the whole community of exiles. In the case of the church, the promise of salvation in Christ is for the whole community of believers.
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.… In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.… In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. (Ephesians 1:4–5, 7, 11)
This passage shows how well-known salvation in Christ has been from all eternity. God chose us and redeemed us according to plan. Actually, everything God does is according to plan, since he “works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.” But God especially knows every step of salvation, from beginning to end, which is why it is sometimes called “the plan of salvation.”
Ephesians 1 also shows that the plan of salvation is for the whole church. Rather than writing about his own personal predestination and redemption, the Apostle Paul continually refers to “we” and “us.” The best-laid plan of salvation in Christ is something all believers share in common. God’s well-known plans are for the redemption of all his people in Jesus Christ.
If God knows his plans for the church, then he also knows his plans for the Christian.
In the previous post, I mentioned that Jeremiah 29:11–13 is a theme passage for our family. I sometimes think of all the times we have trusted this promise together—and all the times the Lord has kept it.
If you are a Christian, then surely you have found the same thing to be true in your own life. You can look back and see how God’s hand has guided you every step of the way. You know from your own experience that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). That promise is not trite—it is the truth. God really does work all things for the good of those who love him. He knows the plans he has for you, and he always has.
Promising Plans
The second thing Jeremiah 29 says about God’s plans is that they are promising. Very promising.
The exiles thought they had every reason to be pessimistic about their plight. They were being held captive and they had no way of escape. But God had “plans to give [them] hope and a future” (v. 11b).
Here was the plan: ‘[I] will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile’” (v. 14b). The exiles would not have to live in Babylon forever. Theirs was a fixed-term captivity. “This is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place’ ”(v. 10). At the end of seventy years they would get to celebrate homecoming (25:11–14).
Jeremiah may have used seventy years to represent a typical lifespan, the way Moses did: “The length of our days is seventy years” (Psalm 90:10a). Or perhaps he was using seventy years more literally. That is what Daniel assumed when he was sitting around in Babylon trying to figure out when his exile would come to an end (Daniel 9:2). The Exile did last seventy years. R. K. Harrison counts seventy years from the Babylonian victory at Carchemish in 605 b.c. to the return of the first exiles in 536 b.c.1 In any case, the point is that the Exile was not to last forever. Even though God’s people were going through the worst of times, things were still promising because God knew the plans he had for them.
If God’s plans are for the future, the Christian must not complain about the present. One of the dangers of grumbling about what God is doing is that, whatever it is, God probably is not finished doing it. By its very nature, a plan is something that will not be completed until sometime in the future. And once it is completed, it will not be a plan anymore; it will be history. If God has plans for hope and a future, you must give him enough time to work them out.
This is why the Christian always lives by faith. A Christian is someone who trusts the promises of God for the future and acts upon them in the present. In other words, the Christian acts on God’s promises before they are fulfilled. “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). To draw comfort from God’s plans for the future, one must take them by faith.
The refugees in Babylon had to live by faith. During the seventy long years of their captivity, they had to trust the promises of God. They had to live for God in the city by faith. They had to build houses, plant gardens, raise families, and pray for the welfare of the city by faith (29:5–7). Things looked promising, but only as long as they trusted God to do what he had said he would do.
Not all the exiles lived by faith. Jeremiah told the sad story of two men who were false prophets and taught lies—their names are Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah:
Therefore, hear the word of the Lord, all you exiles whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying lies to you in my name: “I will hand them over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will put them to death before your very eyes.” (vv. 20–21)
These false prophets, named after two evil kings, were impatient. They were unwilling to wait seventy years for God to work his plan. They wanted him to work it out now; so they took matters into their own hands. They started a “progressive” synagogue, telling people what they wanted to hear. They were also guilty of several outrageous sins— “folly, fornication and fraud,” one commentator calls them.2 “‘For they have done outrageous things in Israel; they have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives and in my name have spoken lies, which I did not tell them to do. I know it and am a witness to it,’ declares the Lord” (v. 23).
Most likely, the reason Nebuchadnezzar had Ahab and Zedekiah put to death is that they tried to lead a rebellion against Babylon. They were treated so disgracefully that they became swearwords among the exiles. “Because of them, all the exiles from Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse: ‘The Lord treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon burned in the fire” (v. 22). Literally, the Bible says Nebuchadnezzar “roasted” them, which was the appointed punishment for treason in Hammurabi’s Code. But the biggest sin Ahab and Zedekiah committed was not treason against Babylon, but treason against God. They lied saying they had a “word from God, when they did not.
If you have decided to live for Jesus, then your future looks very promising. Jesus has promised to forgive your sins, to make you a child of the living God, to send his Holy Spirit to comfort you, to prepare a place for you, and to come back so you can live with him forever. It all sounds most promising, but you must live by faith in those promises.
Good Plans
One can imagine the exiles hearing about God’s plans and thinking that, however promising they were, they were not very good, especially that part about the seventy years. Seventy years is a long, long time to wait for God to work things out. Most people would like God to work out their problems by the end of the week, not the end of the century. The exiles probably knew enough arithmetic to figure out that they would be dead by the time the Exile would be over. “Seventy years, you say, Jeremiah? Sounds great for my grandchildren, but what about me?”
The answer is that God’s plans were not only promising—they were also good. There is a hint of the goodness of these plans in verse 10, where God speaks of fulfilling his “gracious promise.” Grace is the unmerited favor of God. To receive something by grace is to receive something one does not deserve. What God’s people deserved in this case was to stay in captivity as long as God was pleased to keep them there. But God promised to give them something they did not deserve. By his grace he would bring them back home.
The Christian cannot think about gracious promises without thinking about the grace that comes through the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches that all of us are guilty sinners who deserve to be damned for our sins. God has every right to give us the death penalty. Yet “because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4–5b). Now that is a good plan. It is God’s plan for saving sinners. We do not deserve to be rescued from sin or delivered from death. But by his grace God sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins. Salvation is “God’s abundant provision of grace … through the one man, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17).
God’s plans are not only gracious for the future, they are also gracious for the present. “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you’ ” (Jeremiah 29:11). God’s grace is available right now. The exiles in Babylon did not have to wait seventy years for God to do them any good. His plans included their present prosperity. The word “prosper” is the same word Jeremiah used when he said, “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city … because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (v. 7). It is the Hebrew word shalom, meaning order, stability, health, and safety. Shalom is all-encompassing peace. God promised that he would begin to give his people that kind of peace right away. He not only wanted them to work for shalom (vv. 5–7), he wanted to give it to them.
This good plan stands in contrast to God’s plan for the people who stayed back in Jerusalem. His plans for them were not good, for they were judged for their holier-than-thou attitude toward the exiles:
You may say, “The Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon” [namely, the lying prophets who said the exile was almost over; see vv. 8–9], but this is what the Lord says about the king who sits on David’s throne and all the people who remain in this city, your countrymen who did not go with you into exile—yes, this is what the Lord Almighty says: “I will send the sword, famine and plague against them and I will make them like poor figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. I will pursue them with the sword, famine and plague and will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth and an object of cursing and horror, of scorn and reproach, among all the nations where I drive them. For they have not listened to my words,” declares the Lord, “words that I sent to them again and again by my servants the prophets. And you exiles have not listened either,” declares the Lord. (vv. 15–19)
This goes back to what Jeremiah prophesied about the good figs and the bad figs in chapter 24. The people who stayed in Jerusalem were like bad figs to be thrown away. But the exiles in Babylon were good figs, and God’s plans for them were good.
A perfect example of God’s good plans for his people in Babylon is the prophet Daniel. Daniel prospered in exile. Because of his faith in God he was a star pupil in the Babylonian school system. He not only “looked healthier and better nourished” than the pagan students, but he also had “knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning” (Daniel 1:15, 17). When Daniel was able to interpret King Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, “the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men” (2:48). Much the same thing happened when Daniel interpreted Belshazzar’s dream. “At Belshazzar’s command, Daniel was clothed in purple, a gold chain was placed around his neck, and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom” (5:29).
Then Daniel’s career took a turn for the worse. Notice that Jeremiah said God’s plans were good, not easy. Christians usually want life to be easy, but often the good God wants to do can only come through suffering. That is the way it was for Daniel. God’s plans for him were not easy. They included being attacked by his coworkers, persecuted for his faith, and thrown into a den of hungry lions.
But God delivered Daniel from all his troubles, and after he emerged unscathed from the lions’ den, Jeremiah’s promise was fulfilled. “So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian” (6:28). Daniel was a success. He thrived in Babylon. Of course he did! God knew the plans he had for Daniel, plans to prosper him and not to harm him.
From beginning to end, God’s plans for his people are altogether good.
His plans concerning his people are always thoughts of good, of blessing. Even if he is obliged to use the rod, it is the rod not of wrath, but the Father’s rod of chastisement for their temporal and eternal welfare. There is not a single item of evil in his plans for his people, neither in their motive, nor in their conception, nor in their revelation, nor in their consummation.4
Do you believe that? Do you believe there is not one single item of evil in God’s plans for his people? Do you believe that whatever God does is all for the best and could not possibly be any better?
Some Christians harbor a lingering suspicion that God is out to get them. When things go well, they secretly think God eventually will make them pay for their prosperity. Perhaps that is why God makes a point of saying that his plans are not harmful. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you,” he calls them (Jeremiah 29:11b). God’s plans for his children are only good. Even if God sends suffering their way, it will be for their good. Christians who live in fear or worry need to grab hold of the goodness of God. If you are God’s child, God is not going to hurt you.
Personal Plans
The last thing Jeremiah teaches about God’s plans is that they are personal. God’s purpose in all his plans is to bring his people into intimate relationship with himself. “‘Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord” (vv. 12–14a). God’s plans are not just for you—they are for you in relation to him.
This relationship was to begin right away. In this respect, the “then” at the beginning of verse 12 is somewhat misleading.5 It makes it sound as if God’s people will not find him until the end of their exile. What the Bible actually says is, “And you will call upon me.” The exiles in Babylon did not have to wait seventy years to have a relationship with God. He invited them into a personal relationship right away, in Babylon, in their suffering.
The lesson is easy to apply. We do not need to wait to call upon God. He is available to us right now. Whenever we call, he will listen. Whenever we pray, he will answer. Whoever seeks will find.
Seeking God sometimes seems like playing spiritual hide-and-seek. God’s ways are so mysterious that we sometimes despair of ever finding him. But if we do play hide-and-seek with God, it is the kind of hide-and-seek one plays with a toddler. Toddlers get scared if they have to look for very long. For a toddler, the joy of hide-and-seek is not the hiding or the seeking, but the finding. God knows how scary it is to be alone in the world without him. So his good plans are personal plans. They draw his children into the heart of a relationship with him.
Jeremiah 29:13 is a wonderful verse for anyone on a spiritual quest. God says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Anyone who seeks God sincerely and wholeheartedly will find him. What the seeker is really looking for (even if he or she does not yet realize it) is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the way to God, the Savior of the world, and the answer to all of life’s questions.
Jesus repeats the same wonderful promise first made in Jeremiah 29. He says, “Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7–8). God’s plans really are the best-laid plans. What could be better than good, gracious, well-known plans that lead to a wonderful friendship?
In his book Spiritual Leadership, Oswald Sanders quotes this poem about the way God works out his plans:
How He bends but never breaks
When our good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses
And with every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out—
God knows what He’s about.6
Do you ever wonder what God is up to? Of course. We all do. But whatever it is, God knows what he’s about. He knows the plans he has for you. Plans to prosper and not to harm you. Plans for hope and a future.[1]
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