Right Where You Are
4 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jeremiah 29:4-7)
At the time that God spoke through the prophet, Jeremiah, the people of Israel had sinned against God and God had allowed them to experience the consequences of their disobedience. Many were taken captive and exiled in Babylon - their homes and temple destroyed. Even though they may have felt deserving of their current situation, they also hoped for deliverance. But God gave Jeremiah a different kind of message to share. God told the people to, essentially, get comfortable because they were going to be there for some time.
We like to think of God as deliverer, as our get out of jail free card whenever we're in a difficult situation. But sometimes God wants to help us grow and mature in our faith. So sometimes we must stay in the hard places - getting to know the God who provides joy and peace even when our circumstances are not joyful or peaceful.
We, sometimes, must feel stuck in a hard place to realize that
God's presence is as valuable as God's deliverance.
In the midst of this already difficult directive, God told the people to go a step further. They were not only to keep living their lives in this place of captivity, but they were to seek the welfare of the place of their imprisonment - and pray on its behalf. This must have felt like a gut-punch. Babylon and its people were considered by the Israelites to be Godless and God-forsaken, so how could God ask them, or instruct them,
to seek its welfare?
God gives this same message and instruction to all who await deliverance. This is not a call to remain in situations of abuse. We are encouraged to use the wisdom and knowledge God gives to extricate ourselves from harmful situations when it it within our power to do so. And we don't stop waiting expectantly for God's ultimate deliverance, but - trusting God - we are to live fully and with joy right where we are, and we must pray for and seek the good of our neighbor - even when (especially when) we reside, physically or emotionally, in places of desolation or depravity. The welfare of the place we find ourselves will become our own welfare,
to the glory of God.
8 Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard, 9 who has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip. 10 For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. 11 You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs; 12 you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.
(Psalm 66:8-12)
Enjoy this blast from the past which includes a young Fred Hammond!
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