You know, when life feels like exile—when you’re stuck in a place you never asked to be, dealing with circumstances that aren’t what you hoped for—God doesn’t say “just wait it out.” God says do a good job where you are right now.
This comes from Jeremiah’s letter to the people in Babylon. They’d lost everything. The temple was destroyed, their leaders were gone, their whole world was upended. And you know what God told them? Build houses. Plant gardens. Have children. Get married. Participate in life while you’re here. Don’t sit around in a tent waiting for something better. Make something of this.
Here’s what struck me about this: God wasn’t saying their suffering didn’t matter or that the exile was fine. It wasn’t. But God was saying—and this is hard—pray for the peace of the city where you are. Pray blessing on the place that conquered you. That’s revolutionary. That goes against everything in us that wants to protect ourselves or punish the people who’ve hurt us.
When we think about God’s plan for our lives, we often get it backwards. We think God’s got this detailed script where we’re supposed to do this now and that next and tick off all the boxes. But that’s not how it works. God’s plan is something deeper. It’s about where you find God, how you seek God, who you become in the seeking. It’s about staying faithful right here, right now, wherever here is.
We do that, and something shifts in us. We stop being victims of our circumstances and start being people building something real, even in Babylon.
A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope