Everyone wants to claim Jeremiah 29:11 as a promise from God, because we all like the idea that God wants to bless us with prosperity. I challenge such claimants to examine the context of that verse to determine whether they can rightly claim it as God’s promise of prosperity. What do you think – can you rightly claim it as God’s promise to you? In case you need some guidance on that, let me ask some helpful questions. To whom was the promise given? Are you included in the group of recipients?
Although the promise clearly isn’t given to us, but to a specific group of God’s Old Testament people, we can still cherish it because it gives us precious insight into God’s character. The recipients of the promise, the exiles to Babylon, were not living in the place of God’s promise. They had been sent away by God in judgment for their sin, suffering the consequences of their breaking their covenant with God. According to the terms of that covenant, they had no reason to expect God to continue pursuing a special relationship with them now that the covenant was so broken that He had to send them away from the Promised Land. But God wasn’t finished with them. He had given them hope for another chance after seventy years of exile. But in the meantime, He didn’t intend for their exile to be utter misery; no, in that place of exile He wanted to give them hope and prosperity.
Another feature of this promise that we shouldn’t miss is the nature of the prosperity with which He intended to bless them. Ultimately it wasn’t about material prosperity, as we generally think of prosperity, but about relationship with Him and restoration to the place of living in His promises.
His phrasing when He said that He will be found by them, indicates that He wants to be found by them. Even though God had to exile them, even though they were not living in the place of His promise, God wanted to have relationship with them. Nevertheless, as eager as He was for relationship with them, it would only happen if they sought Him with all of their hearts. They had to really want to find Him.
So what application can we draw from this promise for our lives? We can understand that God wants to see His people prosper, not suffer harm. While we New Testament people are not given the same promises as God’s Old Testament people, we understand that it isn’t because He wants to see His New Testament people suffer. He wants to bless us with prosperity even though He doesn’t give us those promises. We can also see that His idea of prosperity isn’t necessarily the same as ours; while we think primarily of material prosperity, He thinks first of relationship with Him. And even though He wants us to prosper, the kind of prosperity He most wants to give us is conditional upon our seeking Him. So He gives no promise to the one who wants the gifts and not the Giver.