Hope
This year has, at times, felt hopeless. The things we knew as normal ceased to be normal, and there seems to be no end in sight. Medical professionals have worked around the clock, putting themselves in harm’s way, parents have become teachers, teachers have had to start from scratch, business owners have closed their doors, churches have sat empty. Loved ones fought illnesses alone in hospitals, and countless people lost their jobs. It is as if the life we once knew ended and a new one began, one that was much harder. Nothing about this last year has been easy, and almost everything has had to be relearned.
But there are a group of believers, God’s people, who lived, about 2,400 years ago,
through something much worse than Covid and lock downs. These people, who walked before us,
were taken/torn from their homes and relocated to a foreign and pagan land. They were forced to learn
a new language, eat new foods, work day and night, be separated from their loved ones, and give up
everything they knew as normal. And yet, all these hardships were part of God’s plan. He planned for
His people to endure a time of hopelessness for His purpose. The Jews were forcibly taken in groups
from Israel to Babylon, and in these groups of captives, we find familiar and important characters like
Daniel or Jeremiah the prophet.
Nestled into the book of Jeremiah, there is a message to these exiles. What did God want the people
who had no hope to know? Instead of a lecture or a long list of grievances, He surprises them with
the following call in Jeremiah 29:
4 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all
the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem
to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant
gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons
and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your
daughtersin marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters;
multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the
welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile,
and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare
you will find your welfare. 8 For thus says the Lord of
hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and
your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do
not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9 for it is a lie
that they are prophesying to you in my name;
I did not send them,” declares the Lord.
God calls the hopeless people to live with hope.
He called them to do happy things, live like joyful people,
not like people in despair even
though they really were in despair.
He goes on to say,
10 “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years
are completed for Babylon, I will visit you,
and I will fulfill to you my promise
and bring you back to this place.
11 For I know the plans I have for you,
declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not
for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me,
and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and
find me, when you seek me with all your heart.