This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:10-11
Dear God, it’s that 70 years that is the key. What happens during that 70 years? My first thought was that the people will be refined through the struggle and they will know how to love you better. But that doesn’t take 70 years. In fact, 70 years will likely see their deaths at some point.
No, 70 years will see their children, their children’s children, and even third and fourth generations born and raised up during the struggle. I think what the 70 years will do is create an entirely new society of people from top to bottom who will have known nothing but struggle and, if this first generation does it right, worshiping you through the struggle.
Father, I don’t know which generation I’m in, but it feels like I’m at the beginning of the decline. So help me to, first, be pure before you, worship you, and submit to you and, second, to teach others to do the same. Guide us as a society. Guide us as a world. I’m not saying we haven’t peaked and our stature as a nation in the world might never come back, but you never promised that to us. As much as we might like to think we are, this country is not your chosen people. But I am your chosen child. So help your children to be ambassadors to the world for your glory’s sake. That starts with me.
In Jesus’s name I pray,
Amen
Emails to God 