My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. – Jeremiah 24:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 11, 2014): Jeremiah 24

A Japanese proverb says that “we learn little from victory, much from defeat.” If it were not for the defeats in life, we would not grow in any of the areas of our lives. Our growth, to a great degree, depends on the challenges that we face. Challenges and defeats help us to fine tune our behavior – and help us to identify bad behavioral strategies. All of this happens, that is, as long as we admit that we have been defeated.

And apparently defeat is a plan that God uses to strengthen his people. As Jeremiah watches the first of the people to be carried into exile, God stresses that the purpose of the Babylonian Captivity is not to destroy Israel; it was to protect them. In the end they would come back stronger. And this wasn’t the first time that God had used the strategy. Back in the very beginning of the nation, Israel was faced with the challenge of being absorbed by the much larger and stronger Canaanite nations. God’s plan then involved sending this family group into exile in Egypt. There the nation would grow and mature, and at the same time be isolated in a group and able to bond together into a national unit. The result was that 400 years later they were a nation that was capable of holding their own in Canaan – even if they doubted that fact themselves. And into this situation steps Moses - to lead Israel into their future.

In Jeremiah’s day, the nation was under threat one more time. This time they were about to be swallowed up by a wave of idolatry. And God decides to repeat the strategy one more time. He takes the best and brightest and allows them to be taken into Babylon. There, God promised to protect them. Meanwhile, Jerusalem and the surrounding area would be cleansed. The seed that was the future of Israel was to be protected until the time came for the nation to be planted once again in the Promised Land.

The problem from the point of view of Israel was that it felt like the biggest failure of the nation, not a moment that God was in control of – or a moment that was to be a stepping off point into the nation’s future. And just as when Israel was in Egypt, the time came to raise up Moses and Aaron, when the time was ready God had plans to raise up leaders like Nehemiah, Ezra and Zerubbabel to lead the nation back home one more time.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 27