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.
-Jeremiah 29:7
so the 29th chapter of Jeremiah is a letter to the exiles in Babylon, and somehow i resonate greatly with this part of it.
it sounds silly, but i feel like as i'm going out from blacksburg and virginia tech, a place of comfort and blessing for the past 5 years, and going back to chesapeake, the place i swore i would never go back to after growing up there, i feel like it's almost an exile.
i don't know why i have a particular dislike of chesapeake, maybe all the things i've learned about architecture and urban planning have showed me all the things wrong with chesapeake, maybe it's the fact that most of my friends have moved on from there, or maybe it's just simply because it's not an exciting place to live.
however, Jeremiah 29:7 really convicted me about how i was feeling. yea, it may not be the place i wanted to go, but it is the place that God seems to be leading me to at this time. what good is it for me to sit and grumble and be miserable the whole time i'm there?
God is putting me into a position where i can actively participate in fixing the things that i don't like about that place, to "seek the peace and prosperity" of chesapeake. there are places that i can minister there, places that i can seek to restore the Lord's justice.
just because i've spent my life in the upper-middle class of chesapeake, doesn't mean that there aren't places of injustice. Deep Creek and Indian River are both places that are very different sides of chesapeake than the ones that i grew up in. just because i'm coming back to an old place, doesn't mean that i have to live in the same way that i did before. i'm a much different person than i was the last time i lived full time in chesapeake. let me be content in all situations and seek God's peace and prosperity for any place that i might be in.
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You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. -Romans 8:9-10
4 comments:
Good luck bro. I think in a way that is my worry. That if I go to Richmond or some how find a way to stay in SW-VA that nothing will change.
In Richmond I fear I will find a crap job or a retail job while I look and be living at home and doing nothing.
If in Salem or Roanoke I am afraid that I will do the same, or spend too much time seeking other goals that are not against the kingdom but not necessarily for the kingdom either. And If I give up on those things to 'do the work of God' in the area I live I fear I will not be content.
Just writing this Yoda comes to mind "I sense much fear in you."
I do not quite know what I want to see in my life after I move, where ever that is. That I think is why I am letting so much doubt and fear in.
Thanks for the reminder bro!
I approve, doit. Change the world!
I understand this. And I pray that God continues to make your heart at home wherever he places you.
(Nope, it's different. But I would be a chief, what what's not awesome about that?)
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