Jeremiah 29:12 Meaning and Explanation

There is a tender progression in this verse. The people will call, they will go and pray, and God says, 'I will hearken unto you.' This is spoken to exiles hundreds of miles from the temple, people who might have assumed prayer only counted in Jerusalem. God tells them otherwise. Distance is no barrier. From a foreign land, in the middle of a long captivity, they can call out to Him and be heard. The verse pictures a relationship coming back to life simply through their turning to Him and speaking, and through His readiness to listen.

This is the same open door Jesus held out when He taught His friends to pray to the Father, and promised that the one who asks receives. The God who listened to exiles in Babylon is the God who draws near to us in Christ, no matter how far from home we feel. We do not have to reach Him by being in the right place or saying the right words. We only have to call, and He has promised to hear.

This promise does not stand alone; it is folded inside a letter that tells the exiles to build houses, plant gardens, and settle in for seventy long years. Into that weary wait God plants an open line homeward. And the verse that follows completes the movement: "ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." The listening God asks a listening heart in return, not idle syllables but the whole self turned toward Him. "The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him," the Psalm agrees, "to all that call upon him in truth." Even in a foreign land the door was never barred; it only waited for them to knock.