In diving into this well-known verse, we must look at the context or background surrounding it. God had told His people they would spend seventy years in captivity in Babylon. Therefore, they were instructed to build homes, have children and grandchildren so they would increase and not decrease, plant fields to grow produce, to seek peace by praying for the very city and people who held them captive, and to refuse to listen to false dreams and prophecies that said contrary to God’s directive and counsel.

Another way to read Jeremiah 29:11 is to include the fullness of the words used:

I know in every way the thoughts, intentions, plans, and purposes that I weave together as I think about you. These are plans of peace, well-being, health, completeness, and peace and not of evil, adversity, affliction, distress, nor misery or sorrow in order to give you an appointed, assigned, entrusted hope that you can grab hold of until it is fully experienced.

God leads us through His -

1) Decrees - this starts by expressing His thoughts about us, moving to His strategies for us, and moving into guiding us with His counsels.

2) Direction - giving us specific counsel (this is what the 10 Commandments are for as well as the Sermon on the Mount).

3) Discernment - as we search the scriptures for understanding, He gives discernment so that our minds can be renewed through His word to avoid any conforming to the ways of the world around us. (Heb. 5:14; Ro. 12:2)

4) Declaration - He simply declares to us what we should do! Some examples of this are found in Acts 8:26-29 when an angel instructs Phillip to ‘go south from Jerusalem to Gaza’ where he then encounters the Ethiopian eunuch and explains Is. 53 to him.

Acts 9:10-12, 15-16 - Ananias is instructed to go to the ‘street called Straight to the house of Judas, to a man called Saul of Tarsus, and to lay hands on him so he will receive his sight back.

Acts 21:10-11 - Paul receives a specific prophetic word foretelling his arrest and imprisonment in Jerusalem.

Isaiah 40:9-10 says: Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from the ancient times things that are not yet done, saying My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.

God knows exactly how to guide and direct our lives for His glory and purposes.