What Jeremiah 29:11 Is Not About

"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."

Jeremiah 29:11 is not a blanket statement of blessing and well being. It does not warrant the prosperity gospel. If we look at the context of Jeremiah we find that this verse is not:

• A promise of immediate blessing from God. In chapter 28 the Lord kills a false prophet for saying God would very shortly bring back the exiles, the Jewish King, and the temple vessels from Babylon. Israel had to wait seventy years.
• A promise of blessing to those who seek to be prosperous. God had a specific plan for blessing his people--they were to dwell in the foreign land and seek the welfare of that land (29: 4-7). Those who refused to participate in God's plan were promised wrath, not blessing (29:15-19).
• A promise of physical blessing for those alive. Verse 10 prefaces this promise with "when seventy years are completed." Many of the people hearing this promise would die before it was fulfilled.
• A promise mainly for physical or personal well being. The promise shows us that having Yahweh is better than having land. Yes, the land and fortunes will come, but only as a result of being restored to God:
  "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. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile." (29:12-14)

The promise of Jeremiah 29:11 is astonishing in light of all the evil, wickedness, spiritual adultery, stubbornness, hardheartedness, and rebellion Jeremiah chronicles. It is better than a promise to restore fortunes and lands and people; God promise to restore us to himself. What better future and hope?