Jeremiah 24:5-6

Sometimes we get ‘sent’ to places in our lives that we both can’t understand and don’t wish to be in. We get put in situations that make no sense because of the apparent hardship we endure for seemingly no purpose. However, we know that God has a plan for us. We know that God means good for us, but we just cannot see how that is to happen.

‘ “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: ‘Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge those who are carried away captive from Judah, whom I have sent out of this place for their own good, into the land of the Chaldeans. For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land; I will build them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up.’” (Jeremiah 24:5-6)

God was providing another ‘object lesson’ for Jeremiah (remember the linen sash and the pottery). This one involved two baskets of figs, one extremely good and the other one full of rotten figs. The good figs, as it says in verse 5-6 represented those who had been taken captive. The bad figs represented the king Zedekiah and all those remnant who remained in Judah or lived in Egypt at the time. They would be brought nothing but trouble and hardship, violent death, famine and disease.

So God is looking favourably upon those who had been taken captive. That was His plan. Those who had been taken must have been thinking ‘oh, we are the unlucky ones. How come that evil king and all the ne’er-do-wells have been left behind?!’ They must have questioned whether God really intended good for them. But God meant it for good. For those who had been sent out of the land, He would bring back into it, and He would plant them there. But those who remained in the land would only encounter hardship.

So when we are put into situations that seem as if God has turned His back on us, just trust. He always does good for us. Always. If we could always trust that fact then I believe our lives would be so much richer and more joyous!