God promised Jeremiah 29:14 that says. “I will be found by your declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all nations that I have driven you.” This is truly a very comforting and reassuring verse showing the promise of God. But I want to explore with you why does God want us to call upon him and pray to him and seek him?

Well the answer is pretty simple and that is in v 11, “… for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, and to give you a future and a hope.”  Now v12 is significant because it says, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.”

The word ‘then’  is a result of verse 11 talking about God’s plan to prosper you and not to harm you but to give you a future and hope. This is Israel going through exile in Babylon, was sent to Babylon because of their disobedience to God and their sin before him and God exiled them to Babylon for 70 years for a purpose essentially to discipline them and to teach them to humble themselves.

Motivation to seek him and pray to God

V11 …for I know the plans I have for you, to prosper you, to give you a future and a hope

v10 God said, “I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back.” v11 “…for I know the plans I have for you, to prosper you, to give you a future and a hope” is a mighty motivation. That is a promise. A big promise.

The word ‘prosper’ in Hebrew:

—1. prosperity, success: a) Lv 26:6 Nu 6:26 Dt 23:7 Is 48:18 60:17, 48:22 = 57:21 52:7 = Nah 2:1 שְׁלוֹם הָעִיר Jr 29:7, מַחְשְׁבוֹת שָׁ׳ Jr 29:11 (rather as 7b).

 Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, M. E. J. Richardson, and Johann Jakob Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the Old Testament, 1994–2000, 1507.

That’s the kind of thing you want to know so that you can have the strength and the determination and stamina to continue to wait upon the Lord and not to give up because God promised. But how long does it take we don’t know but a lot of times God uses this kind of situation to mold and shape us. So if you are going through a times of waiting and crying out to God for a long time and have yet to hear from him, this kind of verses will be very strengthening to you and I, so we need to hang on to the promise of God.

Jeremiah 29:11–12 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. ¹² Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

Because those words that he said “I know my plans for you plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and the future”,  it’s the premise or the basis for God to say in v 12 “Then you will call upon me and pray to me and I will listen to you.”

 And God is so kind to promise to assure us he has a plan for us to prosperous and and to give us a hope in the future first before he said in v12 then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and he promised to listen to us.

Meditate over “I know the plans for us, a plan to prosper us not to harm us, a plan to give us hope and a future”

So folks it is incredibly important to understand verse 11 first and internalize it because once we are really knowing that God’s promise: viz “I knows the plans for us, a plan to prosper us not to harm us, a plan to give us hope and a future,”  then we can settle down settle in the presence of God and call upon God and pray to him over short period or long period even until he listens to us and responds. How long does it take for him to respond, we don’t know. But what we do know is based on his promise for the plan to prosper us and to give us hope and future, we can therefore persevere and put our hope in God in Christ without being wavered. Based on that promise we must internalize in our hearts that God would do it for us therefore we will call upon him continually and without giving up. I think this is really important for us to continue to pray to him even in the absence of response from him because he promised and we shall plough on.

Jeremiah 29:12–14 ¹² Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

Any verse 13 God says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Now the condition is to seek God with all our hearts which means never give up even over a long period of time.

God promised, “I will be found by you declares the Lord and I will bring you back from captivity.”

You can apply that to yourself whatever that’s lost in your lives and whatever you struggled, whatever you pray for restoration. God promised to bring us back from the loss of what the enemy has ravished your family or lives or ministry or whatever. And the time of restoration will come and God will prosper us.

I love the fact that He has a plan for me and I’m gonna stick to that. And I hope you will be too. Amen.