Living in Exile: Finding future and a hope

Most of us are glad to see 2020 end. But, what about 2021? Will it be better?  Or even worse?

None us can see the future. Who would have thought last Christmas we would be quarantined this Christmas due to a global pandemic? Or that riots would fill our streets as they did this past summer? Or that the presidential election would be so controversial?

Can we face 2021 without fear? Let’s allow God’s word to answer that.

When God spoke through Jeremiah to the Israelites in Babylonian exile, he told them to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7). He assured them even as they lived in exile: “I know the plans I have for you … plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (v. 11).

But he had just sent the Babylonians to destroy their temple and take them captive. They were to be enslaved in this foreign, pagan land for 70 years. How can that be hopeful? How can God have a plan for their welfare and yet allow them to be captives in exile? Does he have a plan for us while we’re in the exile of quarantine?

How does his promise work in an exile like theirs and like ours?

Let’s examine in Scriptures the answers that God gave to the Israelites’ during their Babylonian exile. We find five life lessons, each crucial to our day.

One: God has a plan for our lives. Over and again, Scripture declares that fact:

• “You ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:15; cf. Ephesians 6:6, Hebrews 13:21).
• “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God” (Psalm 143:10).

Whatever your decision, question, or problem, know that God has a plan for you today.  And he’s not trying to hide it from you.

Two: God knows his plans for us, but sometimes we do not. No one in the Bible got a five-year plan. Abraham obeyed God without a clear path forward: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).

The fishermen who left their boats to follow Jesus didn’t know they would lead the global Christian movement. When Paul followed the Macedonian call and baptized Lydia in Philippi, he didn’t know he was bringing the gospel to the Western world.

Whatever your question or decision today, refuse to trust your human wisdom, education, or experience. Tell God that you want his will and his plan. Develop the reflex of praying first, always. Prayer puts you in the position to receive all he has to give.

Three: God’s plan is for our best. It may not be the easiest, but his purpose is “for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Scripture assures us of God’s steadfast love. He so loved us that he gave his Son for us (John 3:16). He proved his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Nothing can separate us from his love (Romans 8:35–39). He longs to be gracious to us and rises to show us compassion (Isaiah 30:18).

Even though the Jews’ sins and rebellion landed them in Babylonian exile, he loved them nevertheless. Even though our sins and failures cause him grief, God still loves us. He has a plan to give us hope and a future. All of us. Even in exile.

We must be close to God today if we would hear his voice tomorrow.

Four: his plan begins today. It is a flashlight in the dark, showing us enough to take the next step but often not more.

God had a plan for the Israelites even while in exile, telling them to build houses, plant gardens and eat the produce, marry and have children, and pray for the welfare of the city enslaving them (Jeremiah 29:5–7).

They could not know his purpose for the future unless they were willing to obey his purpose in the present. Oswald Chambers notes,” Wherever the providence of God may dump us down, in a slum, in a shop, in the desert, we have to labour along the line of His direction. Never allow this thought—“I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly can be of no use where you are not! Wherever He has engineered your circumstances, pray.”

A well-known meme says, “Grow where you’re planted.” Even in exile.

Five: God’s plan is for his Kingdom, of which you play a role. God blessed the Jews because they were his children, but also because they were a means to a larger end. He blessed Israel so he could use Israel to bless the world. He prospered them in Babylon so he could return them to Palestine and through their nation bring the Messiah for all peoples.

As prosperous as Babylon was, it was still a foreign country. You and I live on foreign soil. God’s word calls us “strangers and exiles on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13; 1 Peter 2:11). Every day we live, even in quarantine, we must live for eternity.

Trust the redemption of God

Now, how can this plan to prosper us be reconciled with the Babylon where God’s people found themselves? And even more so, with the Babylon in which we find ourselves today?

The key lies in the redemption of God. The Bible never promises that bad will not come to good people. Quite the opposite, in fact. Jesus warned his followers, ^“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Jesus was crucified, Paul beheaded, Peter crucified upside down, every apostle but John was martyred, and he was exiled on Patmos. God never promised that his plans for welfare and a future meant temporal health and wealth.

Rather, his present plan is a means to our eternal good, as it was for the exiled Israelites: “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will 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, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile” (Jeremiah 29:12-14).

God redeemed their Babylonian captivity by using it to draw his people back to himself. Then he returned them to their land, and through them brought the Messiah for all peoples. He redeemed the pain they faced in Babylon by using it to draw them to himself.

God’s holiness requires him to redeem all that he permits or causes. God is redeeming the pandemic and the chaos of our day. I don’t have to understand all the ways he is doing so to believe that he actually is. I don’t have to understand aerodynamics to board an airplane, so long as the pilot does.

God stands ready to use bad times for good purposes, always. In Babylon then, and in Babylon today.

When we surrender our lives, plans, and agendas to his purpose, asking only how we can serve Christ as our King and help others make him their King, then we find his “good and acceptable and perfect” will” (Romans 12:2).

As we seek the welfare of the place we are exiled, God has not lost sight of the hope and future he promises.

Jim Denison, PhD, is the founder of Denison Forum with a reach of 1.9 million. He also serves as Resident Scholar for Ethics with Baylor Scott & White Health.