Prosperously Peaceful

08/22/11

Jeremiah 29.7 7 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.” NIV

When God says, it’s okay; then  it’s okay! Jeremiah had the task of convincing the people of Judah that exile wasn’t going to be so bad if they simply trusted God and cooperated. God promised to look after them and wanted them to serve Him wherever they were with glad hearts and a good attitude. “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…” This sounds pretty encouraging to me.

But then, if I factor myself into the story, what happens if I am carried off into exile? (I’m truly not anticipating exile, but it could happen.) Then what do I do? According to what I’m picking up here, I’m to settle down and trust God – to bloom where I’m planted. Sound simplistic? It is, but sometimes it’s better to cooperate than to irritate. God isn’t bothered by irritation; but it sure blocks my access to His provision and blessing when I do. God doesn’t come up short, but I sure do.

Exile isn’t necessarily a bad place; it can be bad if I make it bad but if I accept my lot as from God then I ease the burden of pitch-a-fit that I place on myself when I feel as if I’m not getting my way. And if God is truly in charge, I surely must be able to anticipate His presence right there with me wherever I go. The apostle John for instance found himself in a penal colony on a rocky island off the coast of Greece… and found the Lord right there with him. I think his was one of the first prison ministries – right up there with Paul and Silas.

I think where we struggle the most is to believe that God would exile us in the first place: God? What did I do to deserve this??? But when we summon the courage, or better, cry out to God for courage, we may just find ourselves in one of the greatest places of ministry in the very exile we find so cruel and/or distasteful. Surely in exile we’ll find those who are in exile who haven’t a clue who God is (and truly don’t even know they’re in exile). Where God plants us, we’re to cooperatively bloom.

And we’re to pray. Praying in courageous faith when everyone else is about to throw in the towel is miraculous; and the promise of God is if we pray for exile to be peaceful and prosperous, then we’ll be prosperously peaceful in exile. Wow! Do that math!

And speaking of Paul and Silas, that’s exactly what happened to them in the Philippian jail. They prayed for God’s peaceful prosperity – backs bleeding and bruised from the blows they’d received – and a train-wreck of a guy (the jailer) found Jesus Christ, and he and his whole family were saved. Now, do that math.

Attitude is everything and trusting God is a great place to start even when the place we find ourselves is less than what we want…