Normally, she was a very happy and animated little girl, but on that particular Sunday morning back in the mid-1980s, she came into church with tears in her eyes. When she walked into Children’s Church I looked at her and asked her if she was OK. Struggling not to cry, she looked at me and said in a trembling voice, “My kitty died yesterday.” Oh, I am so sorry! How did your kitty die? Now the tears welled up, but she got the story out. A few days before the little girl was in the garage and she saw some ‘green stuff’ on the floor. Kitty came over and started to lick it up. She had watched as Daddy had poured some of the green stuff in the car and had seen it overflow onto the floor. She knew where the jug was, so she went and got the jug of antifreeze and poured Kitty a bowl. Kitty died.

          Tragic story for a little girl. You cannot help but feel for her. If she would have read the jug she would have seen that it was harmful, but at six years old she would not have been able to  read it at all, much less have understood. To her, it was her first great loss.

          Christians do the same thing in a Spiritual sense, only the Christians who do these things can read and understand and should know better. Just recently in a devotional book sitting on a table in a waiting room I saw a verse leading into an article. Jeremiah 29:11---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. As soon as I saw the verse I knew where the author was going, and I was right. God has a plan for you! You will prosper, it is in His will! You will not be harmed, it is in His will! You have a wonderful hope and a bright and shining future, it is in His will! It was written in such a way as to give you an uplifted spirit. The article was very well put together. That was not the first time I had ever seen that theme attached to that verse. No doubt, you have seen it, as well. Very exciting!

          One day, several years ago, I was talking to someone and he said, “You know, the Lord has a plan for you and me! We are going to be lifted up and not hurt and we have a glorious future! Don’t you believe that, my brother?” As I recall, it was a grumpy Larry day. I said to him, “Where does it say that?” In the Bible! “Where in the Bible?” Uh, Jeremiah? “Whereabouts in Jeremiah?” I can look it up. “Yeah, and what is the occasion of Jeremiah writing that verse?” Uh, well, I’ll look that up, too. “Good, read the 27^th, the 28^th and the 29^th chapters of Jeremiah and get back with me tomorrow.” He never got back with me.

          To the dearly beloved, but deceased, Kitty, the antifreeze had an interesting taste. When presented with it in abundance, she drank. A Christian reads a verse that is interesting and then there is an inspiring little story to go with it and we read it. And, just like Kitty, we die. Oh, not actually. But we start to die in our spirit.

          Jeremiah 29:11 says exactly what I gave you above. But the context that the verse is in is every bit as important as the actual verse. So, what is happening here?

          The Jews had been unfaithful to the Lord. They had adopted the ways and beliefs of the world around them Then, as a punishment, the northern half of the Jewish nations was attacked by the Babylonians. It was brutal. After the north fell, the Babylonians turned on the southern half. The brutality brought upon the southern kingdom was worse than that of the north. In the end, tens of thousands were taken into captivity. The weak and injured and sickly were left behind to die. In fact, in verses 16 thru 19 of Jeremiah 29 there is a curse placed on those who did not go into exile because they did not listen to God. The ‘lucky ones’ were carried off to an uncertain future of slavery and suffering and pain and loss. This passage is not one of joy, but of loss and heartbreak. That doesn’t show up in that one verse, though, does it? Of course not. How could you feel good reading all of it? In fact, if you read the whole passage you might see the true meaning, which is that when we turn away from the Lord, there is a severe price to pay. Unlike the wisdom of today, reality says that we are free to choose our course, but we then have to pay the consequences.

          What on earth, then, does verse 11 mean?

          First, many people do not realize that the Bible did not have verses in it originally. The Bible was written in the same manner we would write today. No one sits down to write a letter or an e-mail and starts it with “Chapter 1, Verse 1.” Chapter and verse headings were added centuries later after the completion of the entire Book. Like us, the authors wrote in paragraphs. Jeremiah is telling of the terrible punishment as well as looking into the future and sharing with the people some of the awful things which are to come. In the middle of this exceedingly bad news, Jeremiah stops and gives a paragraph of a little good news. Jeremiah 29:10-15, paragraph form--- “For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.  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.  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.

          Verse 11 (underlined) takes a different meaning when it is in context. God does have plans for us, but first there will be a struggle. They would have to live in captivity. There would be slavery. There would be despair. There would be anguish. And it would take 70 years of all of it before the people turned back to God. Then, and only then, could God redeem them.          

          Jeremiah 29:11 is not a happy verse. It is a verse that is to give hope. When those 70 years were completed, God opened it up to allow the Jews to go back to Jerusalem. Almost all the people who had come out of Jerusalem were dead by that time. Jerusalem had been destroyed over the years by marauding bandits. The city was mostly in ruins. Only a small percentage of Jews chose to go back. Most perceived it was easier to live in exile than go back to rubble. But, some did go back and they did rebuild. The city was never as great as it had been, however, there were several thousand who decided following God was better than their own welfare.

          And that is what the passage is about. Jeremiah was writing to people who would know when they read his words that they would not see the day. They would all die before redemption came for the nation. But they kept the hope alive for the ones who came after.

          The devotional writers have taken one verse out of a grim and bleak passage and changed it’s meaning to reflect happiness. The whole passage shows it to be a thin lifeline. However, if you follow it through to the end you see the hand of the Lord at work. That one verse is the proverbial ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ in a tunnel that is very dark and very scary. The light, though, is God’s promise.

          Read the whole Word, not just a suggested verse here and there. That would be like sitting down at a wonderful meal and seeing a bowl of roasted potatoes and saying, “Oh, I love those” and just eating one potato. You would be satisfied for a while, but you would have missed the greater blessing. You don’t watch a minute and a half of your favorite TV show and know what it is about. You don’t read three pages of that novel you have been waiting for and know the theme and conclusion. You don’t fit out and plant a half acre of 600 and expect it to bring any money in. Why do we think we can read a verse and read a short little devotion, that may or may not actually go along with the passage, and then believe we have what God has for us that day?

          Actually, in the time you have wasted reading this blog you could have read a good portion of Jeremiah. Read the Word!