the    sides

Last night at Life Group, Stephanie did her devo on Jeremiah 29:11 - “I know the plans I have for you - plans to prosper you not to harm you.”

She commented that perhaps this was the most misquoted verse in all of scripture. She’s not going to get much argument here. I agree with her. And she talked about disappointment and failures and how in the middle of that it FEELS like God doesn’t have a plan or maybe He did have a plan but somehow we managed to screw it up royally or maybe even if He does have a plan we wonder if He has a clue how it feels to us.

All of us in the room had a story or two of the “dark night of the soul.” But then we finished the story of Jeremiah and how the promise of prosperity to the Jews was fulfilled 70 years later when they were allowed to go back to their homeland.

When Zerubbabel and Nehemiah first walk upon Jerusalem, there wasn’t a feeling of elation. It was depression. In the 70 years of exile, nothing was rebuilt. It was as if time stood still. I can imagine as the families came over the rise to see the glorious city that their grandparents and great-grandparents had told them about - there had to be that moment of awkward silence.

This is it???? This is the “promise fulfilled?” There’s nothing here. We have to rebuild everything - farmlands, vineyards, social structures, buildings, moral climate - everything. We had it better in Babylon.

I wonder if it hit them then that maybe the EXILE that they thought was punishment was actually provision of the Lord from something worse? I look back on my own times of exile and I wonder that as well.