His perfect plans

Before you read my post, read Jeremiah 29 "A Letter to the Exiles." Follow the link: Jeremiah 29.
I was just reading a blog by my friend AT and as I closed I felt like it's been a while since I dwelt on Truth and shared my thoughts here. So since today is my day off, I am free to do that now. As I navigated back to my blog I just thought of what I posted yesterday and realized that a lot of the emotions that I was feeling were gratitude for God even though I was confused and bewildered and didn't really know what was going on. This thought came unbidden to my mind: "God's plans for us are perfect even if we don't know anything about them or how to help them happen."

Thinking about God's plans for us always drives me to Jeremiah 29. I think this passage is even more powerful when you think about who it was intended for - the exiles of Isreal's decendents... And what are we if not exiles, aliens in a foreign land far from our Heavenly Home?

The first piece of commands he gives us are about what we should do in this foreign land. The Isrealites at the time we living in Babylon and they thought that they were just going to be there for a short little visit - more like a holiday than a extended stay. God right here corrects their assumption that they just have to grin and bear it, just make it through trying to stay as separate as possible while pining away after their homeland. He says, No I have plans for you here and I want you to live here.
"Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. ⁶ Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. ⁷ Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."
 The last sentence I find interesting because sometimes I don't really want to pray for the Earth. Pray for Christians or individuals yes, but I almost sometimes feel like Humans get no less than they deserve if for example their economy collapses or they ruin their lives by making stupid decisions.  But God wants us to pray for the land we are exiled in. He wants us to prosper (there he is wanting good things for us) and tells us that when the lands prosper, we will prosper too. We should also be busy building relationships - what better way to increase the Kingdom for His Glory than to get married and have babies, sharing the Truth in the growing families and increasing the Family?

Next God says a warning: "Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. ⁹ They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them," declares the LORD."
Think of how many people we hear preaching the Lies of the Accuser. God wants us to see clearly and now get lost. He does not want us to be deceived or encourage the deceivers to believe in themselves either. Interesting how our belief in a lie only cements it as if it were truth in the mind of the deceiver because those persons themselves are deceived by the Accuser.

This is my favorite part because it speaks to God's love for us and how he wants good things for us. Just like the parable Jesus said about how no earthly father would give his son a rock when he asks for bread nor a snake when he asks for a fish. Our Father knows  how to give good gifts and this section is part of his promise to do just that. Our Father is far sighted and he sees beyond our lives just as well as he sees us individually. He wants us to find him. He wants to pull us close to himself. He wants us to pursue him even as he pursues us because (or at least I personally believe ) that God is a hopeless romantic and he loves a good love story and he has written a beautiful one with each us as the lead characters. But what kind of story spoils the ending - it's so much better when you are pleasantly surprised by his blessings within the story line. I think in this promise is the underlying truth that it is good enough to know God has a plan and we don't need to know what the plan actually is - in fact it is better if we don't know what the plan is.

¹⁰ This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. 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. ¹² Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. ^[b] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."
Praise God for that!

This next passage is interesting because it refers to the rest of the descendants... you know the ones that aren't in exile - the ones that are descendants of flesh but not of faith. These perhaps are the ones that (to the eyes of the exiles) are living the good life in their own homes with everything the exiles dream of at night. I can imagine that I would be jealous of those that didn't have to experience this pain - Kinda like a Jew in a concentration camp looking out at his fellow Jew who didn't get locked up and abused.
 ¹⁵ You may say, "The LORD has raised up prophets for us in Babylon," ¹⁶ but this is what the LORD says about the king who sits on David's throne and all the people who remain in this city, your countrymen who did not go with you into exile- ¹⁷ yes, this is what the LORD Almighty says: "I will send the sword, famine and plague against them and I will make them like poor figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. ¹⁸ I will pursue them with the sword, famine and plague and will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth and an object of cursing and horror, of scorn and reproach, among all the nations where I drive them. ¹⁹ For they have not listened to my words," declares the LORD, "words that I sent to them again and again by my servants the prophets. And you exiles have not listened either," declares the LORD.
Those that are not exiles might seem like they are living the good life by worldly standards, but they are living a life apart from God and Justice will be done. They will be paid justly for their wrongs for the wages of sin is death and no sacrifice was available at that time to wipe away their sins once and for all.

The last section of this Letter to the exiles is I think an example of what happens to those who lead the children of God astray. Do you remember the verse that says it would be better to tie a millstone around your feet and jump in a lake than to lead the little ones astray for what God would do to them...
 ²⁰ Therefore, hear the word of the LORD, all you exiles whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon. ²¹ This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying lies to you in my name: "I will hand them over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will put them to death before your very eyes. ²² Because of them, all the exiles from Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse: 'The LORD treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon burned in the fire.' ²³ For they have done outrageous things in Israel; they have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives and in my name have spoken lies, which I did not tell them to do. I know it and am a witness to it," declares the LORD.
 God's name is precious and powerful. It is a pearl not to be thrown to the pigs. God also loves his children very much and he wants them to be lead carefully and wisely toward him and his truth. He is just and his timing was perfect. I think of the psalmists that cry out because the evildoers were well off and the orphans and widows and those that were good (including himself) were abused for the benefit or amusement of the evildoers. But that psalmist always ended assuring himself of the truth - that their time will come  when justice will be had and God is merciful to those who are humble.