Devotion
A future and a hope
“For I know the plans I have for you... plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”
Jeremiah 29:11
The most quoted verse in the letter was written to people who still had seventy years of Babylon ahead of them.
This promise is often stitched on graduation gifts as a guarantee that things will go your way. Read in context, it is something better and harder. God is not promising an easy decade. He is promising that He has not forgotten them, that the story does not end in exile, and that He can be found in the middle of it. Look at what comes next in verses 12 and 13: you will call on me, you will seek me and find me when you search with all your heart. The hope is not a change of circumstances. The hope is God Himself, available now.
Practice
Close the week by praying about something you cannot see the end of. Then take one step as if God's promise is true, because it is. Make the call. Start the habit. Say yes to the thing you've been putting off until conditions improve. Faithfulness today is how you build for people you will never meet.
Prayer
God, You know the plans and I don't. Thank You that You have not forgotten me or this church. I am seeking You with everything I have. Help me build faithfully today for people I may never meet. Amen.