peace and prosperity

In this week when one political convention is over and the second one is in full swing, I find Jeremiah’s account of the exile to Babylon fascinating. It sounds to me like, no matter what happens in the general election, Christians are going to have an increasingly hard time of it in this country.

I’m reminded that no country on this earth is my promised land. In every spiritual sense, I’m living in exile, just waiting to go home. With that perspective, God’s instructions to his people in Jeremiah 29:4-7 are striking.

“This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 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.'"

God called his people at that time to be good citizens of their land of exile as well as obedient servants to him. It was a difficult call. The Babylonians would try to assimilate these new people into their culture. They would reward those who abandoned the faith; there would be attempted pogroms and talk of genocide. Yet God told them to seek the peace and prosperity of the city of Babylon.

It brings home to me two things. First, I was greatly blessed to live most of my adult life in a country that honored God. I only truly appreciate that blessing now that we seem to be moving into post-Christianity.

Second, though, God doesn’t excuse me from being the best citizen I can be even if my government is a ungodly one. There’s going to be tension between my call to stay faithful to God and some of the things my government stands for, but I have to still work as best I can for the wellbeing of this nation.

There’s a promise, though, in Jeremiah 29:10-11 "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 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.”

God’s plans will be good for me, if I just follow his instructions. That’s something rock-solid I can hold onto.