Jeremiah 29 is a letter. It's written to people in exile—people who have been carried away from everything that made them who they were. Their city, their temple, their land, their identity. They are living in Babylon, which is a polite way of saying they're living in the wreckage of their world. They are shattered. … This is not a promise of restoration to the previous shape. This is a set of survival instructions. … Build houses. Plant gardens. Have children. Seek the shalom—the wholeness, the flourishing—of the place where you've been carried. Not the place you came from. The place you're in.