November 12, 2024
Daily Devotion:
"Finding Purpose in Adversity"
Jeremiah 29:7
New International Version
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.”
Jeremiah 29 is a letter of hope God prompts Jeremiah to write to the exiles. God reminded His people who He is. He has Heavenly armies, and He is still in control. But God also reminded them the exile would last 70 years, to settle down. Build houses. Plant food. Get married. Have kids and grandkids.
God instructed His people to work for the good of their enemy and to seek the peace and prosperity of Babylon! Can you imagine being given this instruction after all the Babylonians have done?
However, God placed them there for a reason. This time in exile was to help the Israelites (both from Israel and Judah) to trust God, to build their faith, but also to be a witness. They were to live for God in an alien culture. If God’s people opposed everything in Babylon and lived completely separate, or if they just fit in and lived the same as the Babylonians, the outcome would be the same. The Babylonians would learn nothing about God!
For the people of God at the start of the book of Daniel, life was hard. Everything was in turmoil. Yet God spoke into this with calming words of hope in Jeremiah 29:11. He told the people, “I am working out my plans, and they are for your good.”
How are we to live in a
culture alien to our beliefs? We could fight and be as separate as possible, or
we could allow the prevailing culture to influence us so heavily that we don’t
live any differently. In Daniel, we saw a different way. Even when our lives
are in turmoil, we can trust God. He is in control. This world isn’t our
eternal home. Our eternal home is so much greater than any land here. But until
we get to go there, we are called to live faithfully where we have been placed
now.
