“ONE World”
Jeremiah
29:4-7
Promote the welfare of the city where I have sent you
into exile.
Pray to the Lord for it, because your future depends
on its welfare.
–Jeremiah
29:7
Although
addressed by God to the exiled Israelite people in Babylon, these verses can
speak to anyone who finds them-self living, working with, or serving other
people in a place that is not their home.
Prior to
this passage, the LORD had told the prophet, Jeremiah, that the Israelites in
exile would be (as God’s people) watched over and cared for, built up and not
torn down, and returned to the land of Israel. There is no doubt that Jeremiah
found great hope for his people in these promises, removed as the Israelites
were from all that they found familiar. Being an Israelite captive of the
Babylonians, Jeremiah likely hoped that the promise of being returned home
would be one that God would fulfill quickly. After all, who wouldn’t, as a
prisoner in a foreign land, hope to be returned to their home as soon as
possible?
As a
result, an encouragement from the LORD to settle down, build houses, plant
vegetable gardens, and start families in Babylon was probably the complete
opposite of what Jeremiah wanted to hear. The hoped-for exile of several weeks
at the most actually became 70 years in Babylon. 70 years! In 29:47, God
intended for his people to live among the Babylonians for several generations,
seeking to live in that city as if it were their own. They were to pray for
their captors, seeking for Babylon to do well in all that it was doing, finding
their own life, hope, and success bound up with the success of those who had
imprisoned them.
What God
had commanded the Israelites to do was a challenge to what they had hoped for.
They were a people stolen away from the place that they called home, a city
which they longed for in their hearts and whispered of in the quiet evening
hours. And yet, here God was telling the Israelites to set aside those longings
and those memories, to stop living in the past. God was making it clear that it
was not the Babylonians who carried the Israelites into exile, but rather God
Himself. The Israelites being taken away from their homes and put into this new
place was not something to blame on those people in whose strange land they now
lived – rather, the LORD Himself was responsible for these changes, and He
intended it for Israel’s good! And, to top it off, God was making it clear that
His plan to bless the Israelites was not wrapped up in their returning to
Jerusalem – instead, Israel’s blessing was to be found in their seeking to
bless, pray for, and invest in the lives of the Babylonians around them.
In a world
and a Christian experience where we are often told to ‘remember the good times’
or hope for the future, we can often miss the opportunities that the LORD
places before us in the here and now. Rather than being a people focused on
some distant heavenly experience or the good memories of our pasts, may we too
listen to God’s encouragement to the people whom He loves:
Dig in.
Get comfortable. Live life to the full. And pray for those around you. Seek to
bless and encourage them, for in their being blessed, so too will you be. See
your God at work here and now, no matter how strange or unusual your situation
may be. Your expectations of how this is supposed to work aren’t necessarily
God’s plans for how it will actually happen. Deal with that. You are God’s
people, and He loves you. He has a hope, a plan, and a future for you. But, it
doesn’t involve you ignoring the present – instead, it is in living, loving,
and working here and now that God desires to share His bounty in your life and
the lives of others.
Adam
Baker
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