“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.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to 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 will bring you back from captivity.”

Jeremiah 29:11-14

God doesn’t want part of us, he wants all of us.  He wants our full surrender, not just part-time surrender.  Imagine if God gave us his grace, his mercy, and love, but only some of the time, not all of the time?  We want all of God, but aren’t willing to give him all of us.  We want that relationship where we don’t have to put in all the effort, but we want to reap all the rewards that come with the relationship.  Hard truth, if you don’t want to seek God with all of your heart, how can you expect him to give you all the desires of your heart?

Let’s dig into this verse from Jeremiah.  While it is a heavily quoted verse, this is for good reason.  Re-read the verse, re-read the promises and the commands he tells us.  “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give hope and a future.” God knew you before you were formed in the womb.  God made plans for you before you were conceived and birthed on Earth.  God didn’t just make plans for you, but he made plans that will prosper you and give you hope, not for the past, but for a future.  God loves you so much that he detailed every little piece of your life.  

“Then (after that, next, in addition to), you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you”.  God has made plans for us, God has promised us a future, but in addition to that, he is commanding us to call on Him and pray to Him.  While we call on him and pray to Him, He promises us that he “will listen to you”.  God is requesting we bring our concerns, worries, joys, questions, all of it to him and he will listen to us.  We need to trust that in our prayers and petitions, he hears and he listens to us.

“You will seek me and find me WHEN you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you”.  Jesus gives us the answer to how we find him, for him to hear from us, it is when we seek Him with all of our heart.  God knows if it’s genuine or not, God knows if you’re seeking Him, but also scrolling your phone.  God promises us that we will find Him when we do this.  God wants our whole hearts, every good and bad part of it. He wants conversion in our lives.  He wants us to give him it all, so he can use all of us for His glory and kingdom.  With all your heart, seek Him.  

“And I will bring you back from captivity”.  What is that captivity for you?  The definition for captivity is “the condition of being imprisoned or confined”.  What is imprisoning you or confining you at this time in your life?  What has had a hold over you for some time?  Depression, anxiety, addiction, love of this world, love of another human, pain from your past?  Think about it and then remember what he promises.  God said “I will bring you back from captivity.”  Your captivity isn’t your future.  Your captivity isn’t your resting place.  Your captivity doesn’t have to be your present anymore.  Your captivity can be a forever past tense.  God will bring you back from captivity.  In bringing you out of it, remember what we first need to do… to call on God and pray to Him.  We need to seek Him, but not just seek Him, seek Him with our whole heart.  In our genuine search for God, He will listen to us, find us and save us from our captivity.  Do you believe that?  If not, I have a challenge for you.  Seek him with your whole heart and see what he can do.  One more challenge to you… don’t just do it once, do it often. Too often, Jesus is treated like a genie in a bottle. You don’t talk to him, but when life gets hard, you call out to him for help. Instead, let’s seek Jesus in all circumstances, not just the hard. With all your heart, in happy and in sad. Seek God with all of you, seek God in the good, in the bad, in the ups and the downs. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:23, “I call God as my witness- and I stake my life on it“.