Written by TJ Laggis, Illustration by Kaitlyn Weiner
“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.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
Time and time again, I have found myself searching for a purpose in this life. A sense of belonging amid the ruins of a broken world. More often than not, I tend to come up empty-handed, never truly feeling content or satisfied with where my feet land. I know many of you feel this same tension, feeling alienated in the places you call home. It’s in this season of wandering that my weary soul stumbled upon a chapter deep within the book of the prophet Jeremiah.
If anyone could understand what it’s like to feel out of place, it’s the Israelites during the unraveling of these Biblical scriptures. Their glorious city of Jerusalem was leveled, their heritage burned and destroyed, by the menacing kingdom of Babylon. They were cast into exile, forced to survive in the outskirts of a foreign kingdom, far from the lives they once knew. There it was — the concept that encapsulated all the emotions that seemed to plague my mind recently, this idea of existing in exile.
That feeling of estrangement can manifest itself in many different ways, each unique to the individual experiencing it. Some of us feel that if we just meet the right person, they could love all our broken pieces back together again, but we’re alone. Some of us feel that if we could just land the right internship or get the right job, that it would begin to solve our problems, but we haven’t yet. Some of us feel if we just had something else, something more than what we have right now, we would see a transition from isolation to intimacy.
Yet it always seems to remain just beyond our grasp. Whatever the source of your discontentment might be, the underlying premise is that we all find ourselves struggling. We’re wrestling with thoughts and perspectives very similar to those of the captive Israelites, the reality that things aren’t the way you dreamed they would be, actually the complete opposite of what you had hoped, in all honesty.
The story for the Israelites didn’t end there, though, and I continued to read on. In the midst of their darkest hours, as the jaws of Babylon closed upon them, sealing their fate, the Lord spoke to his people through the prophet Jeremiah. In the prophet’s letter, addressed to those bound in exile, it read, “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.”
Jeremiah 29:11
As the Israelites poured over this message from the Lord, they were overwhelmed with peace. Even though they couldn’t see or understand their life in exile as a season of growth in relationship with God, this verse reignited the hope of deliverance, from their affliction. The lord was faithful to his people, even when they were in the deepest despair and had lost all hope, he was right there by their side to reassure them that he had a plan to prosper them. A plan of salvation; one bursting with joy, love and peace. They need only be patient and faithful, trusting that in time God would work all things for their good, that their resilience within their trials and tribulations would be rewarded tenfold.
It is this same promise that is laid out before us. This scripture, written around 585 BC, may seem dated and distant from what we currently experience, but that perspective couldn’t be further from the truth. This God-spoken promise, during the fall of Jerusalem, was a promise that was only realized fully in the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. A promise we have the blessing of knowing and experiencing, as we live our lives on this side of the cross.
Many of us are swept up and tossed around by our emotions, tangled in the discontentment of situations we find ourselves in. By no fault of our own, we are lost in this life. Yet there is a Savior who shines in the darkness, one who offers peace in the chaos of our minds. It may feel like we are existing in exile, but God still has a plan for you and for me. It’s all going to work out, it’s all going to be okay, we just have to trust in him. No matter how violent the storm or how dark the night, he will lead us to the gleaming hope of a new dawn. We simply have to find the faith to follow in his footsteps.
