Any way you look at it, they were there for the long haul . . . seventy years. Jeremiah’s letter (chapter 29) . . . a word from the Lord . . . promised a return to Jerusalem . . . but it would not be for 70 years . . . the promise was literally a lifetime away. It didn’t matter what age you were when you heard the promise, you would be old . . . really old . . . if you were still alive . . . at the fulfillment of the promise. If you were a child of 5 years old, then you’d be 75 when the opportunity came to go home . . . if you were a young teen of 13 . . . then they’d be pushing you back to Jerusalem in a wheelchair as an 83 year old . . . and, if you were a thirty-something . . . forget it! . . . welcome to Babylon . . . for life!

And it’s in the context of this promise of God to the exiles of Judah that we find one of the most encouraging verses of Scripture: “For I know the thoughts I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Huh? Really? What exactly are those thoughts? How does seventy years in Babylon . . . a lifetime in a foreign land . . . a promise that maybe my children, but more likely my grandchildren, will only see . . . what kind of future and hope is that? So, I ask myself, what exactly are those thoughts? Are they just the thoughts of returning His people to Babylon . . . or, are they more the thoughts God has of returning the hearts of His people to Himself.

“Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:12-13)

That’s what I think the promise was about . . . not about returning to Jerusalem, but about returning to the Lord. It wasn’t about the getting back to the comfort of familiar surroundings, but about getting back to the reality of a familial relationship with the Father. It wasn’t about a quick trip to the woodshed to get whooped for their sin . . . it was about a journey to an extended stay facility where they would experience open heart surgery . . . and where the lust for other lovers would be purged . . . and where the taste of idolatry would be replaced with a hunger and thirst for the God of heaven, and Him alone.

The fact that it would be seventy years in Babylon was not inconsistent with the thoughts God had toward them . . . it wasn’t at odds with His intent to give them a future and a hope . . . Babylon was the means. It would be there, in Babylon, that the Daniels among them would purpose in their hearts to not defile themselves with the kings meat (Daniel 1:8) and would be drawn to be faithful to God even in the midst of a culture which didn’t know or fear God. It would be in this crucible of foreign values and thought patterns and worldly ways that the dross would be skimmed away and the pure silver of a people devoted to their God would be formed. It would be in the fire of a king who demanded to be honored as God, that the sheep of Israel would be strengthened to stand fast declaring that there is only One God . . . their God . . . Jehovah God . . . the “I AM” God . . . the God who makes new hearts . . . and promises a future.

So I’m a 15 year old boy when I’m hauled off to Babylon. For most of my life, my religion’s been a joke . . . it’s been temple time on the Sabbath, along with idol worship throughout the week. I wear the prayer shawl, but I also burn the incense to the wooden statue on the mantel. But in Babylon . . . though I will likely live out my life there and never return to Jerusalem . . . in Babylon is where God will lead me to know what it really means to live. It is there that He will reveal His thoughts to me . . . there that He will set my eyes on a future that transcends any place on earth . . . there that He will work in me such that I desire Him . . . such that I will call on Him believing He is there and will answer . . . such that I will seek Him . . . and search for Him . . . search for Him will all my heart. And then, says the Lord, “I will be found by you, and I will bring you back from your captivity.” (29:14a) And therein, lies the blessing of the promise . . . therein lies the thoughts He has towards me . . . “I will be found by you.” That’s the future . . . that’s the hope. God found . . . the captivity of sin and struggle and alienation removed . . . relationship established . . . hearts thirsting for Him alone . . . God being the focus and the reality . . . even in Babylon . . . for a lifetime . . . for His glory.