Learning More as an Exile

Scripture: Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. Jeremiah 29:5-7

Observation: Jeremiah sends this letter from Jerusalem to the exiles who were taken to Babylon during the first defeat by Nebuchadnezzar. It tells them instructions for how to live, for it will be 70 years before the Lord brings them back (in other words, they aren't coming back because they won't live that long). They are to settle in, live their lives, and even hope and pray for the peace and prosperity of Babylon, because it is now their home. It is in this way that they will prosper ... if Babylon prospers, and they live within that prosperity and even support it ... "for I know the plans I have for you."

This is the great teaching of this letter from Jeremiah. The exiles are hoping for delivery and return. Their false prophets are telling them they will soon be returned and Babylon will fall. They pray over and over that their lives will return to the way they were and they can live in Judah again. However, the Lord declares that he DOES in fact have plans to prosper them, to give them hope and a future, and that plan is for them to ... settle into their new and permanent lives in Babylon. That life will be even better than the lives of the people still in Jerusalem, who will soon die in terrible ways.

Yes, the Lord has a plan to make the lives of the exiles good, but it won't be to restore their old lives. It will be to give them a new life.

Application: I ALWAYS learn so much about how I am to live when I learn of the life the exiles. It is also for this reason that I know many people misapply verse 29:11 to their situations. None of this section is about correcting or reversing hardships that have befallen anyone. This letter from Jeremiah is about living forward, into the future, with those hardships as part of your backstory, trusting that the Lord will provide a good way forward.

In Jeremiah's letter, the Lord removes their hope that they'll go home, telling them his timing, and that timing excludes them. Interestingly, Daniel - one of these early exiles - clearly is an example of someone who trusted in this prophesy. We know he received the letter because he even references it in his book! He then settles in, takes up employment in the kings own court, and prospers.

I see people so often praying for old times, old ways, and old attitudes to return. I do this! Even while I sit here knowing that my country is breaking, that these internal conflicts are terrible, and the culture in which I live has turned against the Lord in dark and powerful ways, here is what the Lord - through Jeremiah - teaches me ... we aren't going back, therefore we all need to learn how to live and prosper within this 'new normal' of society.

That doesn't mean we support and champion that culture. It doesn't mean we conform to the world. It means we figure out how God wants us to live in the midst of this, and move forward, holding onto both our faith in Jesus and our understanding in the Lord's commands and precepts.

I once lost my entire career because those who hate the Lord decided they hated me and acted upon that hate, and the Lord prospered my family. I still struggle to live into that new prosperity as a professional exile if you will, but the Lord provides. Likewise, ever aspect of our current culture makes every Christian an exile, living in a world where popular opinion and sometimes mandated morals are opposed to the Lord's word, yet we need to live our lives moving forward, even hoping for our nation to somehow prosper and find peace, so we can live within that prosperity.

Again I am reminded of this fact: I am an exile. All Christians are exiles. I am a citizen of heaven, a servant to the king of kings, forced to live in a world of darkness and deceit and anger and sin. I need to live within the Lord's commands, but moving forward within the context of this foreign land.

Prayer: Lord, as an exile, I do not know your clear timing like the first exiles knew it. I do not know if I will be called home in my lifetime, or if it is still beyond my years. However, I do know you have plans to prosper me and my family. May your peace and prosperity reign in this land regardless of the attitudes of the majority. May I find ways to succeed within the context of these people, holding onto your laws and precepts, and with your power and direction guiding me. And, by the examples of love and patience shown by your people, may the people of this 'land' get to see and know Jesus. Amen.