Daily Manna · Day 102 · April 12
Eyes Set for Good
“For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.”
"Because I have God, my heart is quiet." That is a line people write in the front of Bibles. It is not always available.
Something you built was taken apart this year. A job, a plan, a version of your life you had every reason to expect. The aftermath has been long, and long is the word nobody uses when they encourage you, because they are picturing a season and you are living in a climate.
Jeremiah's picture is two baskets of figs sitting in front of the temple, and the sorting has already happened. One basket is good, one is inedible. The good figs are the people already deported to Babylon; the bad ones are those still living in Jerusalem, in their own houses, on their own street, who look untouched. That is the reversal, and it makes for uncomfortable reading. God says of the deported ones, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. Sent. He does not describe the uprooting as an accident he is now repairing. He owns it, and then says his eyes are on them for good while they sit in a country they did not choose, and that he will build and not pull down, plant and not pluck up.
There is no timetable in it. There is nothing here that shortens the exile.
And there is a warning in this chapter that nobody puts in the front of a Bible. The people who looked untouched were the bad basket. Being spared the year you have had is not evidence of favour, and it is possible to spend a whole life in your own house on your own street and never once be sent anywhere for your good.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 102 is Earthen Vessels (2 Corinthians 4:7).