How Exile Stinks Less and the Future Is Worth the Wait

Imagine you are on "timeout," not in your room, but in a foreign nation where everything is different than back home. You know you're there because God sent you there. And you may or may not have contributed to why you were sent there. Maybe you weren't the worst sinner among all those exiled, but you can't say with complete confidence that your sin didn't play a part in the guilt incurred. There were warnings, and we didn't listen. You can bet we're all listening now. How can we get home? How can things go back to normal? How can we get back on track to enjoying God's blessings?

God says, here's what to do while you're there: "Wait, Work, Seek the Welfare of the city." {Read Jeremiah 29:4-7}

These seem like reasonable instructions for natives and locals, for those planning to stay and make this city their home. What about preserving our 'ways'? What about losing our identity to the majority culture? What about the tremendous promise of God to give us land as an inheritance forever? How do these instructions further thatplan?

The people of Israel had every opportunity to never leave the Promised Land. Trust God, Obey God, Live in the Land. That summarizes the terms for staying in the paradise of Canaan land. But they couldn't do it. By willful, blatant worship of idols and disregard for their God, they were cast out of the land and into Assyria (northern tribes, approx. 732 BC) and later Babylon (Judah and Benjamin, approx. 597 BC). The ten northern tribes are lost to history, but the remaining two are given a time frame of seventy years. Then, the Lord promises to bring them back.

But the reward will not ultimately be the land. A few verses later in Jeremiah 29:11 is the classic hope passage: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Here, we imagine remarkable gifts, restored balance to the force, and green pastures forever more. But, a quick fast-forward in the story of exiled Judah reveals that no such balance or beauty returns. Hundreds of years go by as foreign invasion follows foreign occupancy, and the hopes of Israel are crushed. Maybe they missed verses 12-14, like so many of us.

Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and Iwill hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord,

It seems exile is made to purify our hearts from want of stuff and self to a singular longing for God. Exile shapes our hearts to desire God so that our hope in God's future salvation is centered on Him. He makes exile stink less and makes the future worth the wait.

Making Home in Christ with you here until we are with him there,
Loren

For more reading on our home, please take a look at 2 Corinthians 5:1-10.

Rome International ChurchOctober 13, 2023