Accepting exile
Day 372, Monday, Aug. 18
Jeremiah Chapters 28 and 29
Both in my time as a pastor and at other times I have moved often. In all, I’ve lived in a dozen different cities.
Sometime early in all that I came across verse 29:7 from Jeremiah and have tried to live by it: “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.”
So often in our mobile society we consider our city of residence to be nothing more than an address we have while we’re passing through.
I find it interesting that Jeremiah encouraged the exiles to not only settle down where they were living, but to actively engage in seeking the wellbeing of the community where they lived, even though they had not chosen to live there.
Backing up a few verses, he also encouraged them to build houses and settle down; to plant crops and families and increase in number.
The false prophet in chapter 28 was the opposite—he prophesied a quick return to the homeland, which would encourage thinking of the new home as only a temporary condition to be endured, not a place to live.
We can take the same concept to an even higher level as we consider that this earthly life is not our home, but it is also a place where we will live for only a period of time—it is its own journey of exile.
Yet we are called to seek its peace and prosperity, just like we seek the peace and prosperity of the city where we live.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Monday meditation

Job 22:12-20
“Is not God in the heights of heaven? And see how lofty are the highest stars! Yet you say, ‘What does God know? Does he judge through such darkness? Thick clouds veil him, so he does not see us as he goes about in the vaulted heavens.’ Will you keep to the old path that the wicked have trod? They were carried off before their time, their foundations washed away by a flood. They said to God, ‘Leave us alone! What can the Almighty do to us?’ Yet it was he who filled their houses with good things, so I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked. The righteous see their ruin and rejoice; the innocent mock them, saying, ‘Surely our foes are destroyed, and fire devours their wealth.’

Prayer focus
Lord, we pray for the place where we live—its citizens and its elected and selected leadership. We pray for our city, county, state and federal governments that they will make wise decisions that build peace and prosperity for all.