This passage is a staple verse at our house and is displayed in the bedrooms of both our children. Our son, Ian, has it scratched on a piece of paper taped to a wall that also sports a giant G.O.A.T. flag along with posters of accomplished athletes. Our daughter, Mackenzie, has a wood pallet sign that was given to her by a dear friend of mine when Mackenzie was in first grade, when she had just been diagnosed with dyslexia/ADHD and was changing schools mid-year, leaving behind her friends and her neighborhood school. Let’s just say, that was a difficult time in her little first-grade life. Our daughter is now a senior in high school, and the décor of her room has changed through the phases of her childhood. But that wood pallet sign has never left her book shelf. I imagine as she packs for college next year, that sign will become part of her dorm décor. During the course of our children’s lives, this verse has offered different kinds of support, all of which we value.
It is easy for us as Christians to isolate Jeremiah 29:11 as we revel in the glorious thought that God has a plan for our life and wants us to prosper in the hope of a bright future. We claim this assurance especially during seasons of difficulty, hardship, and suffering. But it is important to put Jeremiah 29:11 in the full context of the book of Jeremiah. This verse actually came from a letter written by the prophet Jeremiah to the Jewish priests during their darkest days of exile. What Jeremiah was really telling them to do was to make the most of their time in exile and turn Babylon into a beautiful place to live. Plant, grow, cultivate. Continue to have children and build families. Learn to prosper right there.
How hard is it for us to learn to thrive in times of difficulty and hardship. The journey to that hopeful and bright future rarely matches our timetable. It took 70 years for the Jews Jeremiah addresses to come out of exile, and many did not live to see that day. What if they had stopped finding joy in the everyday and failed to learn to prosper in their current situation? Life would have passed them by.
In our lifetime, we will all experience hardships and suffering. But Jeremiah 29:11 gives us a roadmap and offers the Jews in exile as an example of how to prosper even during those most difficult times.