Hope and Future

I know some of you are aware that I just love the devotionals by Jon Walker. The most recent one I wanted to share with you. I've had to let it sit with me for a little bit. I wasn't really getting that this was for me. His site is www.gracecreates.com. I encourage you to join his daily devotional emails he sends out. I so wish I could met Jon Walker. I feel as if we are kindred spirits. This scipture is from the devotional. I'm just gonna give you what I got out of it.


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 29:7 (NIV)
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This is going to be so great. Ready.

This morning I had to go to the scripture and read the entire chapter and then some. I love it when God just jumps off the pages at me. I encourage you to read it before we go on.

God CARRIED these people into EXILE. The definition of exile is to be away from one's home,city state or country, while being refused permission to return. In earlier chapters God sent Jeremiah to tell the people, look it's going to get really bad around here. If you want to live I need for you to reform your ways and your actions, be obedient, listen, and do what I'm telling you to do. I know it doesn't make sense, but I'm telling you the Lord needs you to get out of here now!

I have had this experience. Almost 4 years ago I had this very conversation with the Lord. I had just trashed my whole life thinking I could do it all on my own and I didn't need any help from him or anyone else. I was so stubborn. I was trying so hard to prove to myself that I could do this life on my own, that I ended up being my own worst enemy. I had to just completely surrender to him and die to myself. That process took a year. It wasn't just over night. God had to change everything about me before I could see that's what I needed to do.I left my life in complete ruins and moved. It wasn't slow, I moved quickly. It was all about get out of here now, it's all coming down around you. This was a physical and spiritual move for me. Not all change requires a geographical relocation, but sometimes you need drastic change in order to recieve your healing.

How confusing it must have been for these people to go from their home that they probably had always known, Jerusalem, and move their family,kids,cattle to Babylon where they probably had never even visited. Then my interpretation of what happens probably went like this. They were in a completely foreign place and they longed for what they use to know. The familiar. They probably had questions like 'What now?"

That familiar will get ya every time. God has CARRIED them out of there for a reason. They get to a new city and want what they had before. God wants so much more than the familiar for our lives. He wants to show us extraordinary things. He wants to show us how much he loves us and what we can accomplish through him. He wants to CARRY us out of the old and bring us into the new. In order to break away from the familiar he had to exile them. Keep them separated from what they knew and refuse to let them go back to it. They had to grow out of the old way of thinking, living and dreaming to be able to receive all of God's blessing. He told them to build a life for themselves in their new land. Build houses, settle down, plant crops. Your going to be here a while so make the best of it.He told them to make the city prosper, if it did, they would as well. He told them not to listen to anyone but him. Not to listen to those people saying, what your doing is nuts and it doesn't make any sense. I'm sure they all had doubts. We all have those doubts. God, am I where you need me to be? Do I need to move to where you would have me do your best work? Do I need to stay at this job, this relationship, this circumstance? None of this is familiar to me and I would like to feel the security again. How funny it is that we can long for things that weren't good for us, because that's all we know and it was familiar. Going out of your comfort zone, stepping out for Jesus can be a wild ride. We need to remember to cling to him and not to the familiar. Here we go to the best part. God's promise to them. I just love this! I have to type out the verse for you. It's so powerful.

10 This is what the Lord says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope and a future."

Our God is a God of hope, love, protection, promises and restoration. He has done for me so much more than I could have ever imagined. I had to be obedient, listen and move even when I didn't understand. God can see our bigger picture. It's all about timing with him. Are you in that place where you've stepped out in faith about something and you feel as if you are in the seventy year holding pattern? It's important to keep the perspective. I have to say seventy years is a long time. The thing is ,God promised them they would return in seventy years. They did. If you knew for certain what God has for you is much greater then what he has given you now, wouldn't you wait on it? If you knew that God had a plan, a hope and a future, wouldn't you wait and stick it out with him no matter what you saw happen in your life? I know nothing else in my life can give me a definate promise of a hope and a future. Not my job, not my realtionships, not my self.

When they go back seventy years later Jerusalem definitely wouldn't look like the place they left. They definitely wouldn't be the same people that God carried out of there. Change takes time. It's important to keep seeking out all the little things God does for us on a daily, weekly, yearly basis. Hold on to those things. Every day I see a sun rise, I think that if God can do that, I can't wait to see what he does with me. God is every where and he does for us all the time. We must make time to see what it is he is showing us and hold onto it. Just keep your forward momentum and your eyes on him. He will lead, you and during some points, pick you up and carry you where you need to be.
He has big plans for us, HOPE and FUTURE.