Well-ness Words: Mind, Body & Soul

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. (Jeremiah 29:11, The Message)

We tend to listen to and repeat Jeremiah 29:11, “11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,” as written in the New International Version. But do we know what this verse means and to whom God is speaking, or why is this such a popular verse to cling to when we need assurance that there is hope for the weary, the afraid, the hopeless, or the helpless?

In context, this verse applies to the Jews who were in exile in Babylon due to the sin of the people. As we know, sin has consequences, and people will suffer the consequences of their sin. The Jews would lose their home and temple in Jerusalem and live in exile for seventy years. Jeremiah 17 mentions the people’s sin as being “fixed on sin, not trusting in the Lord, and not keeping the Sabbath holy.”

The one thing we know about God, sin, and consequences throughout scripture is that God gives us fair warning of the consequences of our disobedience. We can call it cause and effect, if you will. We sin, and there will be consequences. We have also learned through scripture and experience that from our darkest moments and journey through the consequences, there is hope and assurance that we are not abandoned or forsaken by God in our strife.

God tells Jeremiah, and Jeremiah shares with God’s people, that when the time of going through the consequences is up (in this case, seventy years and not a day before), God will show up and take care of God’s people, bring them back home, just as God has planned, not abandon them, but give them a future filled with hope.

How, then, can we apply this text for us today? Let us think of when we know that we have gone astray from God’s purpose in our lives from what God had planned for us or when we steered away from God’s will because our will was more attractive, more straightforward, and more timely than God’s or more satisfying to our ego, and of the times when we are in between the past and the present looking toward the future. When we realize our disobedience or what we consider our failures, it takes a long time to get back on track, so long that it feels like forever or seventy years.

In this process of waiting for things to get better, we may find ourselves in a liminal space, a space where we are neither here nor there and in a hurry to get somewhere. It is in the waiting when we learn about ourselves, God, and the roads we are in haste to take. In the waiting, we learn of patience and perseverance and find ourselves with the strength we never knew we had. Isn’t this God’s plan for us, too? that we realize that God cares about and for us, takes care of us, and promises that the future will always be filled with the hope of a new day, a new way, and a new and better life because God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good?

Whatever plans you may have for 2025, remember to leave them in God’s hands. If your plans align with God’s will, they will come to fruition. If they do not align with God’s will, God has something better for you and yours!

May 2025 be a year filled with the awareness of God’s blessings in your life, health and healing, and a joy that comes from the strength of God! Happy New Year!

In Christ’s love and my gratitude for you,
Pastor Iraida