Bloom Where You Are Planted – Today is “College Sunday” when we celebrate the college students worshipping among us. As part of that, college students are taking part in much of the service, and Daniel Cantrell, a graduate student at Belmont University, is preaching. We have been in a series of Sundays during which we are exploring the Book of Jeremiah, and in today’s passage, the Lord, through Jeremiah, assures the Israelites in Babylonian captivity that they will return from exile and God will attend to their calls. In his message to us, Daniel cites some periods of his own life when he had lost community and was, in some measure, in exile. We, too, experience exile when we lose community, but in surrendering to God’s control, we can return from exile into community under God. No matter our age or our condition, God is not through working through us, and God can turn our exile into purpose if we are willing.
