From Anxiety to Action: Reclaiming Jeremiah 29:11
Few verses have been printed on more graduation cards, journals, and pillows than Jeremiah 29:11. But for many of us, the words have caused more anxiety than comfort.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” — Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV, the preferred greeting-card translation)
The harm is not the cards themselves, but the theology they often reinforce.
In the evangelical world of my (Steph’s) young adult years, I had journals full of anxious questions like, What is God’s plan for my life? What if I miss it? What if I take the wrong path? I believed God had a single, perfect map hidden somewhere in the heavens, and my job was not only to discover the X on the page, but also stay on the right route to get there.
That version of Jeremiah 29:11 pressed me to pray, work hard, and discern God’s will so I wouldn’t be the one to mess everything up. But the worst part wasn’t the anxiety itself—it was how that anxiety pushed me to narrow the focus onto myself. My primary concern became whether I was “doing God’s will” for my own life. My world shrank to my heart, my home, and my job. If I did think about others, it was with a spirit of judgment, wondering if they were really obeying God’s will and following the plan God had for them.
I lost sight of God’s call to bring justice, wholeness, and love to those around me. I became the kind of “good Christian” who journaled and did quiet time faithfully, but never looked up or out. Like the teacher of the law questioning Jesus before the parable of the Good Samaritan, I was more concerned with earning eternal life than noticing my neighbor and showing compassion.
Reclaiming the Verse: Four Shifts
Time in Scripture Circles has changed that. Slowly and communally, Jeremiah 29:11 has become something that guides me. Using the framework of Micah 4—the lens for this series—a verse that was once a weapon of anxiety has been transformed into a plowshare that brings forth life.
Shift 1: From “you” to “you all”
Reading the entire chapter together, instead of pulling out a single inspirational sentence, revealed that this verse is written to a people, not an individual. It’s “you all,” not “you.” This promise was communal, spoken to an exiled community who would not see its fulfillment themselves. It was never meant to pressure a young adult to choose the “right” career path. It was meant to anchor a whole community in the long, slow work of surviving, repairing, and blessing the world around them, even when that world was heartbreaking.
Shift 2: From “plan” to “the thoughts God thinks toward us”
Noticing the words used, we realized the word plan isn’t there. It’s closer to: “I know the thoughts I think toward you all.” The focus is relational, not prescriptive.
Shift 3: From prosperity to repair
The NIV’s choice of “prosper” is misleading. The Hebrew word is shalom, often translated peace. But this kind of peace is not the absence of conflict. Shalom is the wholeness that comes through repair. It is the ongoing work of restoring relationships and community. God’s “prosperity” is not material or easy. It’s about creating conditions where life can be restored.
Shift 4: From hope as wish to hope as action
Finally, the “hope and future” of the verse is the Hebrew tiqvah. It is not passive wishful thinking. Tiqvah is action, participation, risk. It is the literal word used for the red cord Rahab hangs in her window in Joshua 2. It is a visible, tangible sign of engagement with the possibility of change. Hope, in this sense, is what we do when we take part in repairing what is broken.
With these shifts that have happened in me, I now hear the verse like this:
“For I know the thoughts I think towards you all,” declares the Living Presence, “thoughts toward the repair that leads to wholeness, not the actions that lead to breaking. I want each of you—and all of you—to risk the actions that could make tomorrow different from today.”
Hopefully this series on turning swords to plowshares (read the first post, When the Bible Has Been Weaponized Against You here, and the second post, When A Comfort Verse Stops Comforting here) has shown how passages that once hurt us can become instruments of wholeness, hope, and freedom. But that transformation doesn’t happen alone. It happens in circles, where we can question, struggle, listen, learn, and shift.
At 40 Orchards, we are committed to creating and expanding those spaces. We are reclaiming Scripture from the hands that twisted it. Together, we can nurture communities, transform lives, and plant hope where it is needed most. Over the next several weeks, we’ll share stories of those transformations, and how this work is growing.
As you plan your year-end giving, please keep 40 Orchards in mind.
More to come,
Steph & Lisa
