The Waiting

Jeremiah 29:1-14

What do you do when you’re waiting in exile? What do you do when you’re waiting and it feels like the end will never come? God’s words to the Israelites are the same to us today. To the people waiting in exile, who feel trapped and stuck, He tells them to build culture where they are (29:5-7) and seek Him (29:13). Build homes, build gardens, build families, build the city, and pray for it while you are in your waiting. Seek me with your whole heart, not when everything settles but while you are waiting. These are practices of hope in our waiting.

Right between these verses, God says to the Israelites “I know the plans I have for you…plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” If you were to see their condition in the exile, these would have felt like painful words to hear. Welfare? Future? Hope? Hardly. But we know what God was about to do: in an impossible situation, He would deliver them out of exile and return them to their home. To look at Jesus on the Cross is to see the Exile physically embodied. Naked. Beaten. Crucified. Dead. This is the Savior of the world? While some would shout that He could not even save Himself, this was precisely the plan of God. As Christ suffered a seemingly hopeless death, He made a way for those who look to Him to have a future hope. 

Prayer:

God, help us remember that you have made a way for our welfare and given us a future hope through your Son’s giving of Himself on the Cross. 

Question to consider:

How might God be leading you to embody hope in waiting? How might He be leading you in your waiting to build culture and to seek Him?