So that you may have many grandchildren...

““Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.””
(Jeremiah 29:5-7 NLT-SE)

“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.”
(Jeremiah 29:10 NLT-SE)

These passages where in our daily reader for the day and they jumped out at me... Now truthfully they jumped out because of the reference to having many grandchildren and anyone who knows me very well knows I have great plans for having many grandchildren and I am ready to start seeing them come to pass... but obviously there are somethings that need to happen first - but that is another blog post...

But anyways as I read this passage and thought about it during the day I saw it in a couple different ways...

1. Many have the attitude of come Lord Jesus and get me out of here quickly... they are more "rapture" oriented than they are seeing the Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven...

I am all about wanting to see Jesus come but I do not want to be like the disciples when Jesus went up into the clouds in Acts 1 - standing with my mouth hanging open wondering "What the...?" I want to be found busy advancing the Kingdom...

Verses 5-7 are really an echo of Genesis 1:28...

“Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.””
(Genesis 1:28 NLT-SE)

Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare...

What a powerful thought... God has attached a blessing for our lives from our bringing a blessing to the world around us...

2. Now as I was considering verse 10 in Jeremiah 29 I thought about the region I live in. It is a military town and many people who live here are from somewhere else and many times they are merely living here and waiting to go back home...

I remember a cross-stitch picture my wife Bonnie did one time that said "Bloom where you are planted..." There really is no good reason to not be fruitful and productive right where we are no matter where it is we would rather be... whether we are waiting to get out and go back home or we are deployed and want to be back with our family and friends...

Let us be ones who redeem the time and use it to advance the Kingdom no matter where we currently find ourselves...

God has blessed you - go be fruitful, multiply and advance the Kingdom...