Exiled Hope
Wednesday, August 5, 2026 | Dick Patterson
Jeremiah 29
Chapter 29 begins with a letter sent to the elders and exiles in Babylon after Jeremiah received word that false prophets were telling the people they would soon return home. It was a lie, and it did not come from God. Those false promises also kept the exiles from settling into the place where God had sent them.
It amazes me how often they forgot what Jeremiah had faithfully warned them about throughout this book. He had already told them they would remain in Babylon for seventy years, but they did not want to hear it. Instead, they found teachers who told them what they wanted to hear.
Before we get on our high horse, though, we need to look at ourselves. Since the very beginning, mankind's sinful nature has caused us to forget what God has said and pursue what we want instead. Romans 3:23 reminds us, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Every generation throughout both the Old Testament and the New Testament repeated this same pattern. Paul even warned Timothy, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths" (2 Timothy 4:3–4).
The truth is, our generation is doing the very same thing.
So how are we to live in a world where everyone seems to do what is right in their own eyes? We live just as God instructed the exiles to live, remembering that this world is not our home—we are only passing through. God told them, "Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters... multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf" (Jeremiah 29:5–7).
God made His instructions simple for the exiles, and He asks the same of us today. Live faithfully where He has placed you. Be a blessing to those around you. Pray for your community, even when it feels far from God.
And let us never lose hope. In this same chapter, God gave the exiles—and us—a beacon of hope to hold on to no matter how dark our circumstances may seem:
"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:11–13).
May we do the same—seek Him with all our hearts, trust His plans, and faithfully live where He has placed us until He calls us home.