A Future and A Hope

 A Future and a Hope

August 22, 2026

Jeremiah 29:10-14 (NKJV) 

10 For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find [Me,] when you search for Me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.

We love to quote the part about the Lord giving us a future and hope, but what is the whole context? Jeremiah is prophesying the the people of Judah who have been conquered and are being carried off to Babylon. It’s hardly a time to expect hope! And the future that Jeremiah is speaking of is 70 years off, so the hope is really not about these people but is for their children and grandchildren. The exhortation is for them to teach their children to call upon the Lord and to seek Him. This is something that they, as a whole nation, had neglected, which was why they were being carried into exile. But difficult times has a way of focusing the mind and we can see in the book of Daniel where there were indeed young people among them who diligently sought the Lord and they did return to Jerusalem in 70 years. That is hope in hopeless times.

There are many of us today facing difficult times. Many of you have been in the hospital and one is even facing his last days. How do we have hope when all around us looks so hopeless? Our prescription is the same as it was for these people; seek the Lord and search for Him with your whole heart. The Lord does think of us and has plans for peace and not evil and will give us hope and a future. But as the psalmist says, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…” He is with us in the valley and there is hope on the other side. For as Jesus said, “I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33 (NKJV)

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”