Jeremiah 29:10-13
“This is GOD’s Word on the subject: ‘As soon as Babylon’s seventy years are up and not a day before, I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. ’When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I’ll listen. - ’When you come looking for me, you’ll find me. ‘Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed.’ GOD’s Decree.”
“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. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.”
This is one of the more famous promises of scripture. I love the way Peterson has fleshed out the text in the Message. God has it, “all planned out,” “for the future you hope for,” and when we want God, “more than anything else,” he will make sure, “we are not disappointed.” Seemingly, the promise is reserved for when we are at the end of our rope, when we have done all we can do and trusting God is all that is left. The walk of faith travels from promise to fulfilment. This believing is our life’s work. Discovering God’s faithfulness at this juncture forms the bedrock of our faith. And we can get there only through adversity.
Lord, thank you for the afflictions of my life that have led me to trust you. Thank you for the bedrock you are building under me, making me fit for eternity. May I return your faithfulness to you and trust you know what you are doing. Forgive my weakness. Build it into my strength.