Living in Exile

Sometimes we live in a place or just in a particular time in our life where we feel like we’re not where we should be, or maybe we’re not where we want to be.  Not where we'd like to be to start living our life the way we feel we "someday" should.  Sometimes we can feel homeless even at home.  We can feel like exiles whether by our choice or by circumstances beyond our control.  

This may be our first year at college, maybe we've changed colleges and are hesitant to set down new roots because uprooting and moving from where we had been before was painful enough.   Maybe that's a new job that we had to move across the state for.  Or maybe we've found ourselves incarcerated or in a treatment program in the past and we re-live that in our mind and it haunts us. 

The Children of Israel went through exile in the Bible.  They went through it a lot! It seems like all through the Old Testament we hear of the next conqueror or nation that either takes away the Ark of the Covenant or captures the people in parts or in whole and marches them out of their land and into bondage or slavery, the Babylonians even destroy the temple of God so that Israel should lose hope even in their God. But they don’t, some of them stay faithful.  It's hard and they stumble, but they keep coming back to God.   

During the exile in Babylon the Lord speaks through Jeremiah, the prophet, and has him tell the people some astounding things.  He tells them "Whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem... Build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat of their produce, and take wives and have families and give your daughters to husbands and find wives for your sons so that they may give birth to sons and daughters.” In other words, don’t put off living life because you’re in exile. Make plans and follow through with them, do not diminish, grow stronger. 

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that these words are not just for Israel in exile back then, but also now, and also for us.  Feed yourself good things where you are at (prayer, recreation and rest as well as projects that inspire you or maybe work toward one of your "someday" goals).  Make a home where you are at, and grow!  (Community, good works, relationship.)

Notice the words “...whom I have sent from Jerusalem into Babylon”. God sent the people into exile for a purpose, and he knows for how long he will keep them in Babylon. God saw something in his people needed to change and so he needed to shake them up and he shook them hard. He knows his plan for leading them out of exile, too, and he reassures us of that. 

Do we see ourselves as being where God has placed us?  Maybe that's a really tough challenge to believe sometimes.  Or maybe it's something we once knew and have forgotten.  Just remember, when your feel doubtful, He will move you when it's time.  Even if it seems quite mundane or coincidental, God moves in the day-to-day.  We just have to keep our ears open. 

The last thing that really shouts out to me from Jeremiah chapter 29 is this: "Seek the prosperity of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on it's behalf."

God asks us to pray for those who keep us captive, who keep us in exile in our lives, and this is such a strong thing to do.  It can move mountains .  It is also a difficult thing to do and it is so counter-cultural! He may have us in exile but he still asks of us good things, gives us good things, and tells us not to put off living because we aren't living where or when we want to. We can't just wait in stasis and stagnation for the change to come upon us, we have to take up our call even in exile to really live in the world, and to live our faith, right where we are.