Why do I still love Jeremiah 29:11 so much, even though it is so often wrongly used out of context?
“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.”
The other day my youngest child was in the car and wanted out. The snow-covered ground in the parking lot intimidated my cold little girl. I looked at her and reached out my arms and said something like this, “Baby girl daddy’s got ya! You will be just fine.”
Pretend we could fast-forward 80 years into the future. Say my little girl is now an elderly woman sitting in a doctor’s office and has just heard a bad medical report, her frail body slowly decaying. Let’s say she sits in the room and decides to HATE her long-deceased father because he didn’t fulfill his promise that she would be just fine.
Now that’s silly. No one would expect my specific promise in a specific situation to be used in all circumstances in her life. Yet, we do this with God all the time.
There is no doubt one of the most abused scriptures in the Bible is Jeremiah 29:11. Bible scholars know there are sections of scripture that were written to all people at all times and scripture written to a specific group of people for a specific reason. Jeremiah 29:11 was written to the Hebrew exiles out of Babylon promising they would one day receive God’s perfect peace, or “shalom” in their homeland.
It didn’t promise everyone in all of history would be healthy and live a long luxurious life. Those who take specific Biblical promises and apply them to situations they were never intended can accidentally cause great frustration when God appears not to fulfill the misused promise. I have had numerous conversations with people who have given up on God because he didn’t fulfill a promise they assumed for themselves as a result of unknowingly misusing Scripture.
So why do I still love Jeremiah 29:11? Even though it was written for a specific reason at a specific time, it declares the nature and heart of God! As I dive into the New Year, I challenge you to adopt the nature of God, not just random Biblical promises about material things or social positions. Let’s live the nature and heart of Christ! Make your resolution a mirroring of Christ’s heart.