A 21- DAY GUIDE FOR FINDING GOD IN OUR CURRENT SEASON SECTION ONE EMBRACING EXILE Day One IF YOU’RE READING THIS… I’ll never forget the moment Covid-19 moved from being a problem in the Far East to a problem in our city. We’d just had our last Sunday gathering.

To be honest I didn’t see it as our “last” gathering. I thought it would be a pause in our gatherings, and we’d resume in a month or two; after this problem blew over.

Then Monday came. We were supposed to have Alpha. For those who might not know, Alpha is an amazing opportunity we do at Bright City for spiritual seekers to come together and ask big, brave questions about God, the world, and the church in a very safe space.

I say “supposed to” because I got a call from one of our great Alpha leaders. I picked up and immediately he said, “Hey Nick, I’m out tonight and indefinitely”.

He had great reasons and it was very necessary for him to discontinue his involvement with Alpha, but it was then I felt like God gave me a wake up call.

What if Covid-19 might be around for a little while longer than we all think?

Fast forward to several quarantines later and a lot of cancelled plans. I never thought how we gathered as a church would be this affected by what’s happening in our world. Or our lack of gathering for that matter. Never on that Monday would I have thought we’d have to postpone gathering as a church for this long.

Chances are you’re like me, and that means you’re still asking questions like:

“When can life return to normal?”

“When can I stop wearing a mask?”

“When can I not worry about breathing in while passing someone in public?”

“What about church? When can I gather with my people again without any hindrance of fear while I sing?”

Beneath each one of these questions is a deeper question: “What is God up to in our world?”

When things seem out of control, is God still in control? Sometimes I can answer that question with a resounding “YES! Of course” and other times it sounds more like an “I sure hope so…”.

Well, as this was happening, I entered into some time with God to ask him some big, bold questions. I entered into a deep study of the book of Jeremiah and the book of Daniel. I’ll tell you why I chose those two books in a minute, but first I want to share what I feel like God might be doing in our world, and therefore what He might be asking of Bright City.

After months of being apart as a church, I found myself asking God, “God, when are you going to change things back to the way they were?”

I’m sure I’m not the only one asking God this, but I was specifically asking him this question in relation to Bright City.

And that’s when I felt like He gave me his answer. He said in my spirit, “I’m not going to change things back to the way they were. I want to change how things are. I want to change how the church moves forward.”

Not necessarily the answer I was looking for, but it was an answer nonetheless, and a “God answer” is a good answer in any season: especially this season.

I sensed God saying we can try and author a future reality we create within His church or we could allow Him to author a future he wants to create within his church.

I believe allowing God to do this will be a task of refinement, sifting, shifting, and shaping, but it’s the only way forward.

Now back to Daniel and Jeremiah. Why on earth would God place those two books of the Bible on my heart? Daniel has a pretty cool story, and it makes sense sometimes, but what about Jeremiah? Isn’t he known as the “crying prophet”? Doesn’t he say a lot of hard things from God to his people, Israel? And to be honest, in hard times, do God’s people need to hear hard things…?! Shouldn’t what we say and be filled with flowery words and warm wishes? Isn’t that what’s needed right now?

I felt drawn to those two books for several reasons.

First, the more I dove into Jeremiah, the more I saw our story as a country, as a people, and as a church, in Judah’s story. In fact, the Hebrew people during the time of Jeremiah’s letter was going through a huge exile. They were being asked to move from normal life into a very unfamiliar way of life. Sound familiar?

Well, the more and more I read, the more and more this season felt like a quasi- exile. And we have a choice, as did God’s people. We could fight what God might be trying to do, or we could “embrace exile”.

Secondly, I felt like God wants Bright City to stop asking, “When will we gather?” and start asking, “How can we be Sacredly scattered?”.

We all love gathering as the church, but if it’s not possible right now, how can we find “church” as we’re scattered apart in this season? God always promises the church will be fine (Matt. 16), but he never promises a certain method will always be fine.

The sacredness of the church still exists. We just have to find it outside of the four walls of the church in this season. So how can we be Sacredly scattered? I can’t wait to turn to Jeremiah 29 for some great answers.

And thirdly, if we embrace exile and find the sacredness in being scattered, how can we thrive spiritually outside of our “normal scheduled programming?” God does promise “church,” but he never promised us to always and only find church within four walls. The church God promises can be found inside four walls but also outside of the four walls.

So how can we thrive while “living in Babylon”?

Enter the book of Daniel. Did you know once the Hebrews finally embraced exile, they were to live in Babylon for 70 years?! So that meant Daniel and his friends were to go 70 years without the normal familiarities of the spiritual life they’d grown up loving.

In short, Daniel and his friends went 70 years without “church,” but here’s the crazy part: they thrived spirtually in Babylon. In fact God used Daniel to shift a whole nation. The more he embraced exile, the more he thrived in Babylon.

Embrace exile. Live a sacredly scattered life. And thrive in Babylon. That’s what God did then and I believe that’s the season God is calling us into right now.

Do I think we’re on a 70 year journey like the nation of Judah? I don’t know, but I sure hope not. Here’s what I do know:

I don’t want to waste this time wondering when God will return my old life, only to find out he was inviting me into a new life—only to find out he has new adventure, miracles, fruit, and abundance on the other side of embracing this new season he seems to be calling us into.

Now let me ask you, are you up for it? Are you ready to stop wondering when your past will return and start living into a new future God has prepared you for?

Are you able to put aside the complaints and inconsistencies of this season and live compelled to seek God in this new season?

And even bigger, are you ready to trade in “normal Christianity” for a bold Christianity that has the power and potential to change Bright City, Charleston, and possibly the nations?

If it worked for Judah and Daniel and His friends, I know it’ll work for us. Not because you are you and I am me, but because The God of the Hebrews and Daniel [and co] is the God of Bright City.

Different circumstances and personnel, but same God.

Now let’s move forward to learn more about how we can embrace exile. Day Two WHAT IS EXILE? I love new because it can mean shiny. It can mean adventure and surprise. It can mean the trading in of the old model in order to get the new model.

Even when we hear of God doing a new thing, it causes us to embrace it as the exciting thing. Especially when we hear it said like Isaiah describes a new thing:

“Behold I am doing a new thing! Do you not perceive it? Now it springs forth!” Isaiah 43:19

Who doesn’t want to see that come to fruition?!

But just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s easy. I’m going to be up front with you: exile is not easy. It’s not sexy. It’s not glamorous. Because it’s exile, by it’s very nature, it’s no one’s first choice.

Choice.

That’s a very familiar word to a lot of us. We eat what we want. We travel where we want. Some of us get to work where we want. We get to go to church where we want. In fact, we get to go to church when we want, if we want.

Choice is the American way, but I can assure you it’s not the exilic way. Taking choice out of the equation is a very foreign thing to you and me. And because of this, I can assure you the feeling of exile will also be a very foreign thing.

So what on earth is exile? I love how Eugene Peterson describes exile:

“The essential meaning of exile is that we are where we don’t want to be. We are separated from home. We are not permitted to reside in the place where we comprehend and appreciate our surroundings. We are forced to be away from that which is most congenial to us. It is an experience of dislocation—everything is out of joint; nothing fits together. The thousand details that have been built up through the years that give a sense of at-homeness— gestures, customs, rituals, phrases—are all gone. Life is ripped out of the familiar soil of generations of language, habit, weather, story-telling, and rudely and unceremoniously dropped into some unfamiliar spot of earth. The place of exile may boast a higher standard of living. It may be more pleasant in its weather. That doesn’t matter. It isn’t home.” Eugene Peterson, Run With The Horses, p. 142 I think if we allow ourselves to shake our heads and look at our current surroundings, we’ll find ourselves as Eugene says, “where we don’t want to be”. Permission to travel and move about the cabin has been taken from us. In fact, the ability to show our faces in public [literally] has been stripped from us. All and all, whether this season has been hard or good to us, we can all agree this isn’t home.

Church, I believe we have find ourselves in a moment of exile. We are far from the home of our past. We are unable to move and do like we used to be able to, carefree and with choice.

Here’s something I really need to tell you and it’s not easy to say: I believe God is calling the church to a season of exile.

God is calling us into a season where we don’t want to be so that he can make us who he wants us to be. God is asking us to enter into a foreign season and a foreign feeling so that he can do some things in our hearts that might feel very foreign.

Exile for Israel was a physical displacement to accomplish spiritual work.

Exile for us will be physical displacement from all that we’ve grown to love and do, so God can do some spiritual work.

“Exile is the worst that reveals the best” (Eugene Peterson, Run With The Horses, p. 151). Exile is not easy, but it is necessary. Because of this I want to give us some encouragement as we press into the truth about exile.

The first encouragement is, any time God is doing a hard thing it means he’s doing a good thing. God’s doing is always a good doing, even if it’s really hard to embrace and lean into. Exile was hard for Judah, and I know if this is what I think it is—a season of exile for the church—it will be hard...but God.

The second encouragement is so important for us to grasp in this process. In fact, how well we grasp this encouragement will determine how well we handle a season of exile. Here’s what I need us to never forget:

Although we find ourselves in a physical displacement for spiritual gain, we are never displaced from the presence of God. Jesus still came. Jesus still hung on a cross to purchase our never-severing relationship with God. Jesus rose from the dead so that his power and presence can dwell in us and go with us. Exile is always used to remind us of our closeness to God, not to make us feel like we’re further from God. God goes with us in exile, into the foreign and unknown. Just because God wants to usher in a season of exile, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll embrace a season of exile. In fact, you’ll see with Judah there are 3 different responses one can have to exile. Let’s press in to see what our 3 responses might be. Day Three RESPONSE ONE: KEEP THINGS THE SAME GOD showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the Temple of GOD. This was after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah from Jerusalem into exile in Babylon, along with the leaders of Judah, the craftsmen, and the skilled laborers. In one basket the figs were of the finest quality, ripe and ready to eat. In the other basket the figs were rotten, so rotten they couldn’t be eaten.

Then GOD told me, “This is the Message from the GOD of Israel: The exiles from here that I’ve sent off to the land of the Babylonians are like the good figs, and I’ll make sure they get good treatment. I’ll keep my eye on them so that their lives are good, and I’ll bring them back to this land. I’ll build them up, not tear them down; I’ll plant them, not uproot them.

“But like the rotten figs, so rotten they can’t be eaten, is Zedekiah king of Judah. Rotten figs—that’s how I’ll treat him and his leaders, along with the survivors here and those down in Egypt. I’ll make them something that the whole world will look on as disgusting—repugnant outcasts, their names used as curse words wherever in the world I drive them. And I’ll make sure they die like flies—from war, starvation, disease, whatever—until the land I once gave to them and their ancestors is completely rid of them.” GOD said to me, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” “Figs,” I said. “Excellent figs of the finest quality, and also rotten figs, so rotten they can’t be eaten.”

“And I’ll give them a heart to know me, GOD. They’ll be my people and I’ll be their God, for they’ll have returned to me with all their hearts.”

Jeremiah 24:1-10 MSG

I’m a creature of habit. When things are predictable and known, I thrive. Same bedtime, same pillow, same wake-up time, same coffee, same journal routine, same driving routes. I love habit and routine.

In fact if there’s any change in my life, it takes my heart and mind a minute to catch up on what’s happening and why some change can be good. Actually, let me be honest, I’m really good at labeling all change bad— quickly. It’s an unspiritual gift. “This is going to be horrible!”

“This is going to be hard!”

“I don’t want my week to be like this!”

And that’s usually how I respond to little things that don’t have a ton of consequence in my life.

If this is how I handle small change, could you imagine how I’d feel if you told me I had to move from my city and home and live as an exile in another country? A country I know nothing about, among a people where I know no one, and am forced to leave behind everything I love about my own home and city.

I wouldn’t be able to go to my favorite spots, eat my favorite foods, see my favorite friends, all while working for a city I knew nothing about.

This is where Judah finds itself in the pronouncement of God making them step into a season of exile.

Some were not having it. They were stubbornly resisting any changes God wanted to initiate among his people.

They were committed to keeping life the same and assumed Jeremiah had no idea what he was talking about, and that therefore this whole exile thing wasn’t going to happen and God’s people would be allowed to keep everything the same.

In fact, they had “prophets” calling themselves “God’s prophets,” who were telling the people, all this exile business was never going to happen and everything would stay the same.

As we step more into this idea of being sacredly scattered, we have a choice. We can really press into the heart of God and wonder what he’s up to, or we can fight God and try and keep everything the same.

You’ve probably said it, and I know I’ve said it: “I just can’t wait for everything to go back to the way it was! I really want things to be the same as they were!”

Even churches have struggled with this. We’re supposed to be the ones on the frontlines of what God is doing. If he’s doing anything new, we should be the ones proclaiming the new. Instead, we’re willing to risk everything to make church begin again as soon as possible, rather than pausing and seeing what God might be doing in this season. Now, normally there’s nothing wrong with this, but what if God wants to do a new thing? And what if doing a new thing means things can’t go back to the same way/old way. And when I say do a new thing, I mean embracing what God is doing in the spiritual, by way of the physical.

What if God is physically increasing the distance in between us all so that he can decrease the distance between our heart and his?

What if our fight to keep things the same or return to what once was is actually a fight against the change God might be wanting to do in our hearts?

For some reason, God usually uses the physical to do something new in the spiritual. Take the cross as an example: Jesus physically died so that we could spiritually live.

In Jeremiah, God wanted to use the physical exile to reset the spiritual hearts of his people, but he found his people fighting to keep things the same. And because they were fighting to keep things the same, they were unknowingly fighting against a God who wanted to do a new thing.

So when we bring up the word “exile” or “scattered,” how does that make you feel? Are you ready to fight to keep things the same or the way they were, or are you ready to ask God, “What do you want? What are you hoping to accomplish in the hearts of your people? What do you want to do in my heart?”

Now keeping things the same is not the only option. You’ll see as we continue you have some other options when it comes to embracing or not embracing what God might be up to. Day Four RESPONSE TWO: I HEAR CAIRO IS WONDERFUL GOD showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the Temple of GOD. This was after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah from Jerusalem into exile in Babylon, along with the leaders of Judah, the craftsmen, and the skilled laborers. In one basket the figs were of the finest quality, ripe and ready to eat. In the other basket the figs were rotten, so rotten they couldn’t be eaten.

Then GOD told me, “This is the Message from the GOD of Israel: The exiles from here that I’ve sent off to the land of the Babylonians are like the good figs, and I’ll make sure they get good treatment. I’ll keep my eye on them so that their lives are good, and I’ll bring them back to this land. I’ll build them up, not tear them down; I’ll plant them, not uproot them.

“But like the rotten figs, so rotten they can’t be eaten, is Zedekiah king of Judah. Rotten figs—that’s how I’ll treat him and his leaders, along with the survivors here and those down in Egypt. I’ll make them something that the whole world will look on as disgusting—repugnant outcasts, their names used as curse words wherever in the world I drive them. And I’ll make sure they die like flies—from war, starvation, disease, whatever—until the land I once gave to them and their ancestors is completely rid of them.” GOD said to me, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” “Figs,” I said. “Excellent figs of the finest quality, and also rotten figs, so rotten they can’t be eaten.”

“And I’ll give them a heart to know me, GOD. They’ll be my people and I’ll be their God, for they’ll have returned to me with all their hearts.” Jeremiah 24:1-10 MSG

I’ve never been to Cairo, Egypt, but any city that’s been around for thousands of years automatically moves to the top of my list when it comes to destinations I must visit in my lifetime.

Think about that for a second. The United States of American is technically 244 years old as I write this, if you’re going by the documents. Cairo has been an organized city for far longer than 244 years. We are a toddler of a nation compared to Egypt.

What’s not to love about Egypt? Beautiful pyramids, beautiful waterfront, and beautiful people. As I’ve read the Bible, I’ve found I’m not the only one who has a fondness with Egypt. Israel and Judah loved Egypt as well. But their love was never rooted in a travel destination, but as a place where they could run and escape God.

You see, living in the promises of God has always required faith.And Egypt represented something that was always known. I love how Eugene Peterson describes the funny relationship between God’s people and Egypt: “When the Israelites got tired of living by faith, they went 250 miles southwest to Egypt where everything was clear and precise” (Eugene Peterson, Run With The Horses p 188).

When Abraham got weary of waiting on God, he fled to Egypt. When there, he entered into a life of lying and compromise.

The Hebrew people would eventually live as slaves in Egypt for over four hundred years, be miraculously delivered by God, only to request a rapid return to Egypt when they got tired of trusting God with each step and each meal. Trust would be another word for faith.

And then there was Solomon, the wisest king of them all. The Hebrew people never saw again the kind of prosperity they experienced under the leadership of Solomon. He was a natural on how to gain more and more self-sufficiency and security for God’s people. One way he accomplished this was by arranging a strategic marriage and taking a wife from Egypt.

God promised a life of faith in the unseen, and Egypt offered security in the seen.

When God’s people got ready for Exile, it was no surprise that Egypt came up on the short lists of destinations where God’s people could bypass this journey of faith through exile in Babylon and live in the known conditions of Egypt.

Even though Egypt was and is a great city, Egypt was the physical manifestation of a bigger spiritual problem. Judah had been living life how they wanted for many years and they weren’t about to let God determine how they lived now. They wanted choice and decision power… their “God given” freedom.

When I look at our country and cultural landscape right now, I think Covid has been really hard for those who have lost loved ones. That’s really tough and hard, and I know it breaks God’s heart.

But when I look at everyone else, I think the real struggle has stemmed from having decision and power stripped from our daily lives. You can’t go there. You can’t do that. You must wear a mask. In short we don’t like not having decision power and choice. And even more, we certainly don’t like being told what to do.

If God is doing something in our world that resembles some sort of exile, meaning we’re being put on a break from our normal lives and our normal community and church rhythms, we must be careful not to make our way to Egypt in our hearts— meaning, we must be careful to not try and sidestep whatever God might be doing in the church and among his people.

When it comes to this season we find ourselves in, do you find yourself wanting to sidestep the hard and find “Egypt?” To return to the place of power and decision? To know no matter what’s happening and what God might be doing in the world, it doesn’t matter because you’re going to find “Egypt,” a place to sidestep what God might be wanting to teach us in this season?

You can fight for things to stay the same. You can even fight to flee to another country in hopes of missing what God might be doing among his people, but what if there was another option? A healthy option? A good option for you as a person and a good option for his people? What if there was some other choice we could make as a people to truly lean into what God might be doing in this world and among his people?

I’m so glad you asked. Day Five RESPONSE THREE: EMBRACE EXILE

Exile (being where we don’t want to be with people we don’t want to be with) forces a decision: Will I focus my attention on what is wrong with the world and feel sorry for myself? Or will I focus my energies on how I can live at my best in this place I find myself?...Exile reveals what really matters and frees us to pursue what really matters, which is to seek the Lord with all our hearts. Eugene Peterson, Run With The Horses, p.147

GOD showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the Temple of GOD. This was after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah from Jerusalem into exile in Babylon, along with the leaders of Judah, the craftsmen, and the skilled laborers. In one basket the figs were of the finest quality, ripe and ready to eat. In the other basket the figs were rotten, so rotten they couldn’t be eaten.

Then GOD told me, “This is the Message from the GOD of Israel: The exiles from here that I’ve sent off to the land of the Babylonians are like the good figs, and I’ll make sure they get good treatment. I’ll keep my eye on them so that their lives are good, and I’ll bring them back to this land. I’ll build them up, not tear them down; I’ll plant them, not uproot them.

“But like the rotten figs, so rotten they can’t be eaten, is Zedekiah king of Judah. Rotten figs—that’s how I’ll treat him and his leaders, along with the survivors here and those down in Egypt. I’ll make them something that the whole world will look on as disgusting—repugnant outcasts, their names used as curse words wherever in the world I drive them. And I’ll make sure they die like flies—from war, starvation, disease, whatever—until the land I once gave to them and their ancestors is completely rid of them.” GOD said to me, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” “Figs,” I said. “Excellent figs of the finest quality, and also rotten figs, so rotten they can’t be eaten.”

“And I’ll give them a heart to know me, GOD. They’ll be my people and I’ll be their God, for they’ll have returned to me with all their hearts.”

Jeremiah 24:1-10 MSG If exile means God is doing something to shake and stir something up in his people, we’ve talked about how we can respond. We can fight to keep things the same or return to how they were. We can also try and sidestep anything God might be doing by trying to “flee to Egypt.” Or we can do the very thing God might be getting at.

And that’s embracing exile.

To embrace exile for the people of God in the time of exile was to embrace God’s plan for his people. It wasn’t what the Hebrew people wanted and it wasn’t what God wanted. He wanted his people to dwell in the promised land and live for him and with him.

But the more blessing they received, the further they drifted from the heart of God. He sent prophets. He sent His word. And nothing or no one changed anything so Exile was the only thing left for God to do.

But to bring His people out of the familiar was to bring them back into the familiar. To bring people out of their normal surroundings, God’s hope was that they would see Him— the familiar face they knew in generations past.

As we enter into numerous months of living in this “exile” of COVID, it has accomplished that for me. It moved me out of the familiar so I could be reconnected with what’s important in this life, in the purposes God has for me.

And that’s what exile does: it reconnects us to the plan and purposes of God. We live in a foreign way of life so that we can connect with the familiar God.

To embrace exile is to embrace God. If God has put a pause on normal life and normal church life, how will we respond? How will you respond? Will you fight Him, or will you find him?

Because he’s a gracious God, you’ll see, even in exile, God sends his blessing. Even in exile, God uses his people in a mighty way. Even in Exile God gives his people a plan and purpose.

But all these amazing things are only found when we embrace the exile, when we embrace what God might be up to.

So how do we embrace the exile? What’s the first step in walking with God in this season? First, we need to really grasp and understand what got us to this place. We’ll talk specifics tomorrow, but for now we just need to know sometimes God allows things to happen so He can awaken our attention. Next, even though this might be a hard season, we need to know it can be a powerful season. I love what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in his famous book, Life Togethe:

“Though I scattered them among the nations, yet in far countries they shall remember me” (Zech. 10:9). According to God’s will, the Christian church is a scattered people, scattered like seed “to all the kingdoms of the earth” (Deut. 28:25). That is the curse and its promise. God’s people must live in distant lands among the unbelievers, but they will be the seed of the kingdom of God in all the world.” (p. 216)

Did you catch that last part?! We the church, the people of God have an amazing opportunity to be seeds of the Kingdom of God in all the world! Being a seed might sound really underwhelming but when Jesus talks about seeds it can be overwhelming! In the Gospels he mentions seeds being these little itty bitty things that can lead to massive growth. They are powerful when they’re put in the right conditions. Just like seeds being dropped in fertile soil with plenty of sunlight are the people of God dropped in Babylon as exiles with the purposes and power of the kingdom.

Exile is not a passive season, its actually the opposite of passive as it has the potential to be a powerful season.

And lastly, Embracing exile doesn’t mean we won’t be the graced and gathered people of God. It just means it will look different. And even though it will look different and feel different it will still be God’s Grace whenever and however it looks.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this when reflecting on a time in history where the church [in Europe/Germany] was scattered and persecuted because of Hitler. If you agreed with Hitler and his evil leadership, you could meet as the church. If you believed Hitler’s ways were contrary to God, you were seized and either scattered or killed. On reflection to the season they were in as a church and country, he wrote this:

“Thus in the period between the death of Christ and the day of judgment, when Christians are allowed to live here in visible community with other Christians, we have merely a gracious anticipation of the end time. It is by God’s grace that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly around God’s word and sacrament in this world. Not all Christians partake of this grace. The imprisoned, the sick, the lonely who live in the diaspora, the proclaimers of the gospel in heathen lands stand alone. They know that visible community is grace.” Life Together, p. 216. To gather is to be graced and as we continue into this time of Exile, to embrace exile is to embrace the grace when we are able to gather. It might look like coffee. It might look like church online with the family or roommates. It might look like small groups. But in each of those moments the grace of God can be found in the different gatherings.

Embracing exile will be different. It will be difficult. But God your allowance has our attention. We know this will not be a passive season as it has the potential to be a powerful season. And when we do taste church, we’ll rejoice in the grace. However small, we’ll see the grace.

The past three days we’ve been studying this scripture of Jeremiah 24:1-10. In this passage God is talking about good figs and rotten figs. What do figs and exile have to do with us? He said to go and flee to Egypt is to be rotten. To embrace exile is to be ripe. Embracing exile will be different, but defining for our lives.

This is embracing exile. This is following God into the unknown with anticipation and expectation. God is still here. God is still near. God is still active. It’ll just look and feel different— and that’s ok. Day Six WHY EXILE

Part of embracing exile involves not just physically going with God but also spiritually going with God. And in order to spiritually go with God, we need to really do the hard work of figuring out why God is allowing a season of exile for his church.

Before we go any further, I want to address something I just said. You might have a hard time with that combo: God and allow. How can a loving God allow hard things to happen to his people? With something as hard and difficult as this is, I really want to lean into God’s Word.

In the book of Amos, God through his prophet says the following:

“I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord. “I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away. I sent rain on one town, but withheld it from another. One field had rain; another had none and dried up. People staggered from town to town for water but did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord. “Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, destroying them with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord. “I sent plagues among you as I did to Egypt. I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord. “I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord. Amos 4:6-11 NIV

I’ll be the first to confess, this is not the type of sermon you’d expect to hear on a Sunday morning at church. We crave light. We crave hype. We crave a sermon that tells us, “You’re heading in the right direction. Keep going!”

While at times those sermons are very necessary to the Christian faith, sometimes the church needs a prophetic voice that encourages God’s people to lift up their eyes, look at the current cultural situations, and connect to the very truth that God might be wanting our attention. He might be wanting his people to turn from living one way and head in a completely different way—one that puts us back in step with him. Well, in order to “turn” or return to God, we have to know what we’re leaving and turning from in the process. We have to know what current things are happening in our culture and world that break the heart of God. We have to know how we’ve strayed so that we can run fast back into the grace and forgiveness God extends to his people.

In the book of Jeremiah, God gives Jeremiah a few things to tell his people about how they’ve strayed from him, and because of their straying, exile is on the way.

And even though this list is almost 3,000 years old, if you’ll really allow your heart to be open to hear from God, you’ll see this list is just as applicable today as it was then.

So, in what certain areas did Judah struggle and how might we be currently struggling in the same ways today?

1 | Worship and idolatry (Jeremiah 5:18-19; 7:16-18, 16:10-13):

This is a common theme throughout the Old Testament and especially in the prophetic books. To think about God’s people making for themselves little gods out of wood and metal in order to worship them sounds really silly. God’s people being led by leaders and kings who built all kinds of temples to serve and worship all kinds of different gods sounds so foreign to our culture. Who would do this today?

But what if it’s not? Worshipping something more than God is a really simple posture to slip into. Here’s how it works. Something or someone in your life takes the place of God. Your thoughts, affections, and resources exist for this thing or person more than God.

This could be a hobby, a project, a job, a goal, a person, entertainment, or even travel/adventure. You live and move and find your being in these things. Meaning, these aspects of our lives start as small desires and aspirations, then move to being the main focus of our lives and existence.

And here’s the interesting thing about idolatry: it evolves into being multigenerational. It’s transferable to the generations behind us if it’s not properly terminated. In Jeremiah 7:16-18, idolatry is a family affair. The children gather the wood, the father builds the fire, and the mother makes the offering. Idolatry is never isolated. And it’s certainly never overlooked. Our unchecked and unconfessed idolatry has led us into exile just as it did Judah. 2 | Empty religious ritual (Jeremiah 6:16-20, 7:8-11, 7:21-23):

God digs down even deeper into the heart of his people. Not only was idolatry a problem (that is, false worship)—empty worship was also a problem. Judah’s church attendance was great. They even even brought in the “best incense from Sheba.”

That makes me think about how excellence has become our offering in today's church gatherings: “God, you want my best...you want my most creativity...God, we do this all for you...be with the sermon, the songs, and the technology...God, we just want to reach people for you…!”

And that might be ok on some days, but God desires mercy, not ritual. He desires right living—or as he puts it, obedience. We might be fine within the four walls of the church, but what does our obedience look like outside those four walls?

God wanted Judah to know, even though they went to the “house” of God often, their hearts were far from him. What a tough wakeup call to realize our Sunday attendance could be in vain.

To use an analogy from Eugene Peterson, God cares more about the marriage, and we’re stuck trying to throw a wedding reception each and every weekend.

No great and healthy marriage relationships can be strengthened by the wedding ceremony alone. It takes deep heart work to properly invest in a healthy marriage. We’re often focused on the show, the ritual – God desires a holy relationship with us.

3 | Passivity and participation in social injustice (Jeremiah 5:26–26, 7:3-7, 22:1-5):

If there’s a worship problem, it affects the love of God. And if there’s a disconnect in the proper love of God, then there will certainly be a disconnect in the proper love of neighbor.

Judah lived in such a way where “the rich got richer and the poor got poorer.” They lived in such a way that they were passive when certain people groups were treated poorly and racism thrived. They didn’t care for the widow or the orphan.

And even worse, passivity was the way, as God’s people stood up for no one and nothing. They played the middle to be politically correct rather than properly loving their neighbor. Or even worse, they played to their political affiliation as an excuse rather than properly exercising the love of neighbor. It hurts my heart to know I still live the same way. 3,000 years later I’ve contributed to things being the same vs. different. Racism is still alive and well in and among the church. The widow and the orphan still struggle to thrive. I, being among the 1% wealthiest in the world, still spend mostly on my own personal life rather than blessing others who might need my help.

God will not ignore the unlove of neighbor.

4 | Poor Leadership (Jeremiah 6:13-15, 7:8, 23:1-4, 23:16-38):

Exile for Judah was a problem that started hundreds of years before it actually came to fruition. There were some kings who were ok and there were some really, really bad and busted kings. Some would bring religious reform and try to redirect the people, and others would come right behind the reform and re-erect the idolatry and brokenness of the past generations. As a result, over the years, they strayed farther and farther from God’s heart.

And then God couldn’t take it any longer.

When God sent Jeremiah, he came preaching a hard message of repentance, one of exile, and false prophets would come behind him and preach “feel good” messages, telling the people, “Everything will be ok. Don’t lose hope! Exile won’t happen! God won’t do that to his people!”

And then exile happened.

“This will only last a year or two! Don’t set down permanence in Babylon. This will only last 2 years!”

And then God said, “70 years.”

Unfortunately, as leaders we are judged for how we lead or don’t lead. And unfortunately as a people, we are held accountable for the leaders we choose. We’re held accountable for who we elect and who we choose to give power to. And we’re held accountable for who we choose to follow and sit under each and every Sunday. God expects the best when it comes to leaders who call themselves believers + followers in the church and outside of the church.

5 | Sabbath breaking (Jeremiah 17:21-27):

This is one of the more interesting passages in Jeremiah. There’s a lot God is saying to Jeremiah, and that Jeremiah is saying to the people of God. Jeremiah announces the judgement of exile. There are a lot of moving parts here. And then all the sudden God tells Jeremiah to go stand at “the People’s gate” and preach a sermon on keeping the sabbath.

Sabbath? Really?

Of all the things happening in Judah, not properly taking a day off seems like it would be furthest from their problems! It seems so out of place.

But God brings up keeping the sabbath as one of the reasons for Exile.

So why would Sabbath be such a big issue with God at a time like this? At a time when so many different things are going wrong? Here’s what I think:

With each relationship in our lives, the health of the relationship is defined by trust. Do I trust that person? If the trust is strong, the relationship is strong.

Sabbath is an exercise of trust towards God. It is a 24-hour stop and pause to exercise a declaration that you and I trust God. We trust his provision. We trust in his rest. We trust that he, not us, sustains all things. And we exercise that trust through a hard stop called the sabbath.

If there’s no exercise of sabbath, there’s no trust. And if there is no trust, there’s a fracture of relationship between God and his people. To restore sabbath is to restore trust.

Fast forward 3,000 years later, and we ask, “Do we have a sabbath problem”?

Sure there are days off. Sure there are binging days of entertainment and other fun things.

But is there a pause for worship? A pause to say with our action—or inaction—“God, I trust you”?

Do you sabbath? Do you devote one day to resting God?

Sabbath might seem not of importance to us, but to God it was and is very important. So important He brought it up to his people through the prophet Jeremiah in a very chaotic time.

As you read through this list, you might be familiar with some of these issues. You might have felt them in your own conscience but didn’t have words. You might have thought about them long ago, but forgot and moved on as life moved on. And even more you might have felt the presence of these issues among God’s people— the church. The beautiful thing about God is he always gives us more time and more chances. He always gives us grace to return to him. He always gives us his Holy Spirit to empower us for right living and obedience.

He gave the people of Judah 23 years of warnings through the ministry of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 25:3). The God of the exile is the God of inexhaustible grace and forgiveness toward his children. With repentance comes refreshment to his people and to his church. Day Seven A PAUSE Pause, Reflect, and give yourself time to think about all you’ve read and experienced in exile this week. SECTION TWO SACREDLY SCATTERED Day Eight WORSHIPFULLY WAITING All of us are given moments, days, months, years of exile. What will we do with them? Wish we were someplace else? Complain? Escape into fantasies? Drug ourselves into oblivion? Or build and plant and marry and seek the shalom of the place we inhabit and the people we are with? Exile reveals what really matters and frees us to pursue what really matters, which is to seek the Lord with all our hearts. Eugene Peterson, Run With The Horses, p. 151

Around the middle of March, our country and state entered into a “shelter in place” period, where we were asked to stay home unless we needed to grocery shop, go on a walk/exercise outside, or an emergency presented itself.

Those were the instructions given with no end date in sight.

It can be incredibly hard to wait when you don’t have an end date in sight. It can be even more difficult to wait when there is no purpose or meaning in the waiting— other than just waiting.

The Hebrew people found themselves in a very similar circumstance. Once a remnant of the Hebrew people embraced exile, they found themselves in Babylon living in tents, not letting themselves get too settled.

They knew they were in Babylon because God brought them there. They knew they weren’t living according to God’s plan in the promised land.

But the one thing they didn’t know was when exile would end. In fact there were a lot of “prophets” who claimed to be prophets of God, who encouraged the people to not settle too much, to not embrace the relocation to Babylon. “Any day now, God will return us and our belongings back to Judah” were the messages were preached among the people. I bet they would have gotten a ton of podcast plays + Youtube hits.

After false messages like this began to make their way among the Hebrew people in Babylon, God asked Jeremiah to step in by writing a letter from Judah to the exiled Hebrew people in Babylon.

That’s where Jeremiah 29 comes from. It’s a letter from God, through Jeremiah, to his people, giving them further instruction as they embrace exile. Jeremiah 29 will be the guiding passage for the next part of our journey together and here’s why. I believe, even though we’re in a season of scattering, we can still find the “sacred” as the people of God. God might have paused Sunday Church, but he hasn’t paused the church.

In fact, I believe, even though we are currently scattered as the church, we can find the sacredness of the church in this season.

Once we’ve embraced exile, we will embrace waiting. And to embrace waiting is to embrace worship.

In Jeremiah 29, God gave his people the framework for living a scaredly worshipful life in a season of exile. Translation: God puts a plan and a purpose behind the scattering of his people, and I believe he wants the same for you and me.

God doesn’t want us to merely wait for 2020 to end and then worship. He wants us to worship right now, especially in the waiting.

He has a plan and a purpose for our lives, especially in this season. But before we can go any further, we have to decide if we’re willing to look for the sacredness of the church outside the walls of the church. Will we be willing to worship differently than we’re accustomed to on Sunday mornings and find the worship in the everyday responsibilities laid out for us in Jeremiah 29?

If you’re willing to worship in the waiting, I know you’ll find the sacredness of the church in this season of scattering. Let’s dive in and see how we can find it. Day Nine THE HOME Build houses and make yourselves at home. You are not camping. This is your home; make yourself at home. This may not be your favorite place, but it is a place. Dig foundations; construct a habitation; develop the best environment for living that you can. If all you do is sit around and pine for the time you get back to Jerusalem, your present lives will be squalid and empty. Your life right now is every bit as valuable as it was when you were in Jerusalem, and every bit as valuable as it will be when you get back to Jerusalem. Babylonian exile is not your choice, but it is what you are given. Build a Babylonian house and live in it as well as you are able. Eugene Peterson, Run With The Horses, p. 146

This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. (This was after King Jehoiachin and the queen mother, the court officials and the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the skilled workers and the artisans had gone into exile from Jerusalem.) He entrusted the letter to Elasah, son of Shaphan, and to Gemariah, son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon.

It said, “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.”

Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord. This is what the Lord says: “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. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to 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 will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:1-14 NIV During the first 10 years of marriage, my family and I moved 11 times. Some moves were out of desperation to find and make a home for ourselves.

It’s really hard to feel at peace without a place—a home base. Jesus did this, but it must have been very tough. For some, that home base will be permanent, and for others, it will look a lot like Jesus, who was very nomadic.

And even though “homebase” looks very different for different people, throughout centuries, the ministry of the kingdom flowed through the home. The early church thrived because the ministry and mission of the church flowed through the home as well as the temple.

I think there’s a sacredness around the home. This is why, when the home is dysfunctional, it causes a lot of dysfunction in the life of an individual.

Because there’s meant to be a sacredness around the home, God told the exiles to start there: “Build houses and settle down.” Their original plan was to build tents and ride out this 1-2 year exile journey, but God needed them to understand 70 years is a long time to spend in a tent. They needed to set down roots. They needed to build more permanence.

I think the same is true for you and I in this season. Finding sacredness starts in the home. And I believe God has made this easy for us in this season. Home has become more of a homebase than ever before.

We’re schooling from home. We’re working from home. We’re working out from home. There’s a lot being done from the home. It’s almost like we’ve returned to life like the Hebrews experienced in Babylon during the 6th Century.

So what does this look like? How can we infuse some sacredness in our homes as we wait in this season?

One encouragement would be to make a place where you can connect with God regularly. Throughout scripture, God connected with his people in a physical space. For some it was under the stars, for some it was in a tent, for others it was in an ark/box, and even on a mountain. God connects with his people in real time and real space. So do you have a space in your home that’s set up for you to connect with God regularly? Maybe it can be a chair, a corner, or even a porch/deck. This place should be set up ready to receive you as you make your heart ready to receive Christ. Is it distraction free?

Once you’ve established a place to connect with God, next turn your attention to the community aspects of your home. Even though we’re in a season where freely inviting people over to our home isn’t happening, one day it will happen again.

So what does it look like to get your home “community ready” now? Are there changes you can make right now that would promote sacred gatherings in the future? Maybe seating arrangements need to be re-thought through? Maybe you need to start saving for a bigger dining table?

All of our dining chairs are really old and falling apart. In fact, each time I sit down for a meal, I pray that I won’t end up on the floor. There have been some close calls, but so far so good. True story.

We’re taking our time in replacing each chair so that once this season ends, we can have people over for dinner again.

Hospitality out of the home has been the backbone of God’s people throughout all of history. Whether it was Abraham hosting people outside of his tent or Pheobe having church out of her home in Romans 16, the home has been a space God has always used.

And I believe God will continue to use it. So how can we make changes now that will set us up for success in the future? Your house is meant to be a hub for the kingdom. Let’s be the people who plan and prepare now, so we can hit the ground running when God allows. CULTIVATE + CREATE + Day Ten PRODUCE Put in gardens and eat what grows in the country. Enter into the rhythm of the seasons. Become a productive part of the economy of the place. You are not parasites. Don’t expect others to do it for you. Get your hands into the Babylonian soil. Become knowledgeable about the Babylonian irrigation system. Acquire skill in cultivating fruits and vegetables in this soil and climate. Get some Babylonian recipes and cook them. Eugene Peterson, Run With The Horses, p. 146

This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. (This was after King Jehoiachin and the queen mother, the court officials and the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the skilled workers and the artisans had gone into exile from Jerusalem.) He entrusted the letter to Elasah son of Shaphan and to Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. It said:

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.”

Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord.

This is what the Lord says: “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. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to 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 will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:1-14 NIV One of the first things we did as a family during quarantine and sheltering in place was plant a garden. No, the desire didn’t come from an in-depth reading and study from Jeremiah 29. It didn’t come because we felt like God asked us to. It came from a desire to make the most of a difficult situation. If we were going to be stuck in one place for an unforeseeable amount of time, we knew we wanted to have something to do. We wanted to be productive in some way. Even more than that, we knew the opposite of productivity for our family would be apathy—and we didn’t want to be apathetic.

For God to tell the people of Judah who were exiled in Babylon to plant gardens has multiple layers to it.

To start, the Hebrew people were an agrarian people. To plant was to eat, and to eat meant there had to be planting. There was no Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, or Chick-fil-A. They didn’t “happy hour,” eat out, or take out. They ate what they planted. And if they didn’t have, they traded with those who did have what they wanted and needed.

This was a way of life, so much so that their calendar and festivals as a people revolved around being an agrarian people. Their festivals coincided with harvest. We, on the other hand, celebrate Christmas because it’s on the calendar, not because it’s the most fruitful time for the land. Their celebrations were only as good as the present harvest.

Additionally, to be a people that planted crops was to be a productive people. This goes back to the charge God gave Adam and Eve in the garden. They were to steward the land in such a way, it made them productive and gave them produce.

To be a people that planted and produced was who the Hebrew people were created to be. It was their God-given identity.

And even though we’re not agrarian people living in an agrarian society, we too are a planting and producing people. We sow and we reap. We plant and we harvest. The only difference is it’s not necessarily food we’re sowing and harvesting, but it’s our God-given endeavors. We work and get a paycheck. We do a good job and get a promotion. We work on our house and sell it for increased compensation.

When the Hebrew people went to Babylon, they would be living among a different people with a different calendar and a different way of life. The call was not to be among them and mooch off of them. The call was still to be the productive people God made them to be. Their days were to have meaning and purpose. They were to enter into the rhythms of a new place and a new people, but to do so as God’s people. Change the location; keep the identity. When I think about our time in this moment, it’s important to cultivate, create, and produce. To do so is to live out our God-given identity.

We’re not made to merely consume. We’re not made to sit back and critique. We’re not made to merely copy. And we’re certainly not made to be apathetic.

We’re made to get our hands dirty. To step out and learn new things and new ways. And most of all, we’re not called to be lazy and apathetic, but we’re called to be active and productive— God producing something in and through us.

This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

I don’t know what you’ve found yourself doing as God’s scattered people in this season but I know God wants us to find the sacredness of cultivating, creating, and producing. This will take us past being critical consumers who are lazy, which is the way of “Babylon,” the way of the world.

God’s people are scrappy creatives who are able to make the most out of every season and every circumstance— especially now.

And when we do, we will shine.

One more thing before we close our time together. It shouldn’t be lost on us that God desires to bless us even in hard circumstances. The Hebrew people found themselves in exile because of rebellion, yet God blessed them and made them productive people. As a people, to produce crops was to have God behind you, to have God blessing the rain, the soil, and the atmosphere. To produce anything meant you were blessed by God as He’s over everything.

And now God extends that same blessing to you and me. In a hard season and a hard circumstance—to produce is to be blessed. He wants to produce a harvest through each one of us.

The question remains, will we be the ones willing to cultivate and create? Don’t lose sight of who you are and who He’s made you to be in this season. REFINE + REPAIR + DEEPEN Day Eleven RELATIONSHIPS Marry and have children. These people among whom you are living are not beneath you, nor are they above you; they are your equals with whom you can engage in the most intimate and responsible of relationships. You cannot be the person God wants you to be if you keep yourself aloof from others. That which you have in common is far more significant than what separates you. They are God’s persons: your task as a person of faith is to develop trust and conversation, love and understanding. - Eugene Peterson, Run With The Horses, p. 147

This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. (This was after King Jehoiachin and the queen mother, the court officials and the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the skilled workers and the artisans had gone into exile from Jerusalem.) He entrusted the letter to Elasah son of Shaphan and to Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. It said:

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.”

Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord.

This is what the Lord says: “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. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to 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 will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:1-14 NIV During high school I worked at a small bakery in Charlotte, NC. After I graduated I took a “gap semester” to move from merely working to managing the cafe portion of the bakery. Part of my responsibilities involved opening the bakery early in the morning. People would come in, get coffee for their day, and a pastry for breakfast. Of course there were our regulars. Though I might not have known them by name, I knew them by order. They would pour through the doors as surely as the sun would rise.

One day however, the regulars didn’t come.

In fact, many people didn’t come. The day happened to be 9/11, but I didn’t know at the time what had happened. This was well before smartphones and constant news access in our pockets. Finally someone came in and told me what was going on. He didn’t know much, but he said a plane flew into a tall building in NYC. Then he left. Right after he walked out the door, my boss called. She, being from the northeast, was in tears. She updated me and asked if I had any way of getting a TV to the bakery to watch the events as they unfolded. She literally told me to close the doors of the bakery, run home, and get a portable TV my family had.

I came back, plugged the TV in, adjusted the antennas for reception, and watched while I worked. The day was difficult, different, and so sad. I wasn’t emotionally mature enough to pick up on everything everyone was feeling, but I knew our country was in a bad place.

I think I went in at 5am that morning and clocked out after 5pm that night. I remember going home and seeing the family in front of the TV. Then I remember falling asleep to the president addressing the nation from his desk in the Oval Office.

What followed was beauty emerging out of the brokenness, as a nation came together around several cities that experienced trauma and heartache through disaster.

Not only did people all across America pour out for these cities, but people also poured into churches like never before. I remember hearing one NYC pastor say his church went from a small perish to a megachurch very quickly.

People might not have known exactly what they felt about God, but they knew they needed to be around the possibility of something bigger than themselves, and they certainly didn’t need to be alone. Processing hard things alone and apart from God can be detrimental to the soul. It’s in these moments we crave a higher being or a higher power, and the company of people, more than any other times in our lives. This can be said about something like 9/11, and the same can be said about personal tragedy. When hard things happen, we crave the spiritual and the relational.

Fast forward to where we find ourselves currently in this world. We are in the midst of a very hard time because of a worldwide pandemic. People have lost their jobs, some their health, and some have lost loved ones. It’s supposed to be times like this where we seek the spiritual and relational, but as we’ve all seen— it’s been difficult and even impossible to seek these things in the traditional ways. If after 9/11 we were able to flood into our churches for the spiritual and the relational, the opposite has been true for this pandemic. Same traumas of loss and hurt, but unfortunately different outcomes.

Even though we find ourselves in a different circumstance as we did during 9/11, the same care is needed. We need the spiritual and relational touches in our life.

God knew this to be true for the people who found themselves in Babylon. This was not a vacation where they decided to extend their stay. Babylon came into Judah (the southern kingdom of the divided kingdom of God’s people), declared war on the city, destroyed the city, pillaged and captured their valuables, and carried the Hebrew people back to Babylon— half prisoners of war, half refugees of war.

Trauma requires spiritual and relational touches.

God wanted them to rise above the experienced trauma and part of that was going to be found in not being alone and not being among the Hebrew clique, but by being among the people of their new home.

God called them to relational building in their current circumstances to heal the trauma of their current and past circumstances, because they were created to be relational people.

To take it back to the garden of Eden again, God’s declaration over Adam’s life—“It’s not good for man to be alone”—was not merely about Adam finally settling down and finding a proper spouse to start a family. It was about Adam finding proper community and intimacy because he (and eventually Eve) were created for community and intimacy; and that doesn’t happen when we are alone.

In fact, it’s not good for anyone to be alone for a long period of time.

Maybe you’ve felt that in this season. This pandemic hasn’t really become a tragedy that’s been able to pull us together. It’s become a tragedy that has literally pulled us apart, scattered us. It has become an attack not just on our world, but on the Jesus way of life. We are God’s gathered people. We gather once a week, sometimes more. We have home groups. We have coffee dates. We have breakfast groups. We share meals at dinnertime. We have Easter and Christmas gatherings.

In Matthew 5, God compares his people to a city shining on a hill, not some person standing alone with a flashlight. To be Christian is to be relationally connected. It’s likened to being an active part of a city.

So what does that mean in a time like this? Is this an opportunity for all the introverts to rise up and tell all the extroverts, “I told you so!”?

I think if we introverts were being honest, this has become more isolation than even we bargained for.

So how can God’s people find the sacredness of relational connectivity in the midst of a worldwide pandemic?

To start, we need to believe deep in our core being is that God wants us to be relationally connected, especially now. If you’re waiting to jump back into relational connectivity “after this whole thing blows over,” the damage will already be done. You and I were not made to be alone in perfection (Eden), so we’re definitely not made to be alone in chaos—that includes pandemics. Pandemics don’t determine what’s good and right for us, God does. He’s created us to be relational, and so we must believe deep in our core that we should be relationally connected, especially now.

This leads me to the next thing we must remember: relational connectivity has always required work, and it will absolutely require work during a pandemic.

I saw a meme once that said the real miracle of Jesus’s ministry was having friends in his 30s. Friendship relationships are hard, but we must work to maintain them, start new ones, and/or deepen existing ones, now.

In the past, relationships were centered around the care of people, but now it will require the care of people and the care of our health. We will have to be careful. We might be required or asked to wear a mask. Maybe we’ll have to continue the 6 feet of space rule.

But all of the above are small sacrifices to enter into the purchased community extended to us through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. In short, he became a sacrifice to purchase our God-given blessing of community and relationships in and through the church.

If he thought the sacrifice of his life was worth it, we should think the small sacrifices needed to be relationally connected right now are worth it. Friends, we are in a season where it’s easy to be convinced this might not be the best time to be with and develop relationships with people. This is furthest from the truth. Just as God called his people to overcome the trauma of exile in Babylon with the treatment of good relationships, the same calling extends to us now.

We’re going to overcome the trauma of this pandemic through the sacredness of relationships. We’re not going to shrink back, but to use Jeremiah’s words, we’re going to increase relationally. We’re going to increase, deep and wide.

We need relationships in the midst of the traumatic as the church and so does the world. When the dust settles as it settled with 9/11, the world will be looking for a place to reconnect with people again. They will be looking for a place to enter back into small talk, deep conversation, and have a laugh or two.

Because of this, the church needs to be ready.

Friends, may we believe that God wants relational connectivity for your life and my life especially now. And may we know it’s going to take more work than it ever has before. But it’s a small sacrifice in comparison to the sacrifice of the Son on the cross, so we can grow together in hard times.

Give yourself to relational connectivity now—today. Don’t wait. The enemy wants us to think we have to be alone, and once we’re alone he’ll look to devour those who have isolated themselves.

God’s blessing of relational connection is not conditional, it’s eternal. We overcome best when we come together, so let’s start now. Day Twelve BLESSED IN BABYLON Make yourselves at home there and work for the country’s welfare. Pray for Babylon’s well-being. If things go well for Babylon, things will go well for you. Welfare: shalom. Shalom means wholeness, the dynamic, vibrating health of a society that pulses with divinely directed purpose and surges with life-transforming love. Seek the shalom and pray for it. Throw yourselves into the place in which you find yourselves, but not on its terms, on God’s terms. Pray. Search for that center in which God’s will is being worked out (which is what we do when we pray) and work from that center. Eugene Peterson, Run With The Horses, p. 147

This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. (This was after King Jehoiachin and the queen mother, the court officials and the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the skilled workers and the artisans had gone into exile from Jerusalem.) He entrusted the letter to Elasah son of Shaphan and to Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. It said:

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.”

Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord.

This is what the Lord says: “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. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to 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 will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:1-14 NIV Growing up I was raised as one of two brothers by a single mother. I’ll never understand and know the sacrifices and energy my mom poured out to raise my brother and me. There were very early mornings. There were very late nights. There were long work days, worked by my mom to provide all that we needed growing up. Not to mention numerous chemotherapy sessions in the midst of it all as she battled cancer most of my childhood.

Because she was a single mom raising two boys in the midst of chaos, the “law” was laid down thick and quick at times. Because life could get crazy at any moment (and I could get crazy at any moment), consequences came quick and thick in the Connolly household.

I remember one time my mom told me C’s were no longer allowed, because she knew I was capable of more. Well, report cards came out and exposed a C I earned in probably either science or math.

What followed were consequences that make me laugh even to this day. That year I had racked up at Christmas time with amazing gifts. Brand new Nike shoes, Oakley sunglasses, and Tommy Hilfiger brand clothing. I looked good—for about two weeks.

When she saw my “C”, she seized all of my new gifts and stored them at a neighbor’s house. In fact, if my memory serves me correct, I was left with 3 outfits. Try navigating middle school awkwardness wearing the same three shirts and shorts/pants until midterms.

Not only that but she removed the door from my room as well. The door penalty is still confusing to this day, but a total bold power move by Susan L. Connolly. Looking back at that moment as I raise my four children, the consequences might not have been proportional to the crime. One might say they were a little extreme.

But in Susan L. Connolly’s defense, there were plenty of times where I deserved what I got and much more. Times where I said things I shouldn’t have said. Times where I didn’t honor and obey. Times where I was being super selfish and self- focused. The consequences that followed in those moments were definitely proportional to the crime.

In Jeremiah 29, Israel found themselves receiving their consequences for their “crimes.” On day 6 we discussed the crimes, but on day 12 we talk consequences.

Their consequences involved relocation. It involved living in another country, far from home, for 70 years. At this point you might be thinking the same thing middle-school Nick was thinking as his mom removed the door to his room: “Seventy years?! Relocation?! Are these consequences proportional to the crime?!” If you’re thinking these things, you’re right, but for all the wrong reasons.

Nestled in the consequences handed out by God to Israel was an overwhelming blessing. How crazy is that?! It’s like the parent disciplined the child by giving him some hard and beautiful encouragement over ice cream.

God blessed Israel even in their sinful consequences. How amazing is the grace of God?! Here’s what God says to his people in Jeremiah 29:

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.

Translation: “You took me lightly for many years, but you’re still my light.”

Did you see that? Did you catch that? God’s punishment included the prosperity of his people! They were to be a people of peace, a people of shalom in the midst of a people who had no peace and no shalom.

There’s something you should know about the Babylonian people (and this might be true of our world today). The Babylonian people were prosperous, but they were not peaceful. They pillaged and exiled the Hebrew people as one of many nations destroyed and exiled by Babylon. They were a fighting people. They were a pillaging people. They knew no peace, and they certainly didn’t know the shalom peace of God. This is an other-worldly peace.

They certainly didn’t have anyone praying for them. And they certainly didn’t have anyone crying out to God on their behalf.

I don’t know if you remember the prophet Jonah? He had a call on his life to go to a place called Nineveh, an Assyrian kingdom. God told Jonah to go there to preach and pray. But Jonah ran the other way. This is important because eventually the northern kingdom, Israel, would be attacked and exiled by Assyria.

This was God extending a second chance to his people, but through a different nation and people group.

Jonah ran the other way. Not you. Be FOR them. Pray FOR them. Pray FOR them to do well, because if they do, and if you contribute, there’s prosperity to be had for you too.

Blessing in the midst of a consequence. This is the God we worship.

So what about you and me? We too find ourselves in this season of exile. Scattered people looking for the sacred. So what will we do? How will we respond?

Here’s a thought. What if we doubled down our efforts for our city? What if we doubled down our efforts for the people we work with? Our Neighbors? Our communities?

Again, I know this is a hard season for some of us, but I am confident God is allowing this season because he wants to awaken his church. He wants us to be awakened to what He wants to do and accomplish—in and through us—for his glory.

I don’t know what city you find yourself in. I don’t know where you work. I don’t know who you’ve befriended. But here’s a bold statement: I believe God is allowing some hard things to go down right now in order to awaken our hearts to our task at hand.

You and I are peace proclaimers. We bring shalom when we show up to work or dine or play. How amazing is that? We have the peace of Christ all up in us (the theological term). We bring a shalom, a peace that only comes with an allegiance to the kingdom of God.

And he’s wanting to pour it out through you wherever you find yourself.

So how do we bring the peace, prosperity, and shalom?

We have to be FOR the people outside the walls of our church in a way like we never have before. We are past the days of being “good Christians,” and we’ve entered into the days where we need to be powerful Christians. That is, us bringing the authority and agency of the kingdom God has extended to us and through us wherever we find ourselves.

We need to pray for people in our lives and community like never before. Recently I learned the phrase “T’s and P’s” as a cute, catchy, and sometimes condescending way to say “thoughts and prayers.” We are past “T’s and P’s,” and we’ve entered into needing prayers of desperation for our neighbors, coworkers, friends, and city.

This is a new urgency I don’t remember the church ever having— and to be honest ever needing. Friends, we need this urgency now. We need this fire.

May our desperation be found and displayed in our prayers for the people of our Babylon. But back to where we started. We stand in the midst of a season where the consequences don’t fit the crime. Church, we have strayed. We have missed the heart of God. We have not been the light he’s called us to be. He’s been knocking, and we’ve said, “We’re good. We’ve got an amazing show on Sunday...come and see!” We’ve not loved the least of these. We’ve been prideful. We’ve supported the wrong people, and we’ve not supported the people Jesus would see, support, and love. Our worship and sacrifices have been lukewarm, and the fire’s gone out.

And now we get our consequences. And, church, they are not proportional to the crime.

We get power. Authority. We get to cry out and talk to God about our loved ones. We are the sinful who somehow bring shalom and peace in the midst of the chaos. And—are you ready for this?— all this leads to our prosperity.

Now, what will be our response?

Will we pout and ask God to return things to “normal,” or will we step into our God- given authority and tasks given to us in the midst of this season, in the midst of our “Babylonian” moment?

Will we find ourselves debating on whether or not this is a season of consequence for his church? Would a loving God allow such a thing? This is a big topic, and I don’t know every detail, but I do know a humble heart knows perfection is not obtainable, and therefore imperfection can be acknowledged and repented of often, because we are forgiven and free.

Here’s what else I know: Jesus leaves us with a picture of him knocking on the doors of his church...and I want to be someone who answers, who comes to the door, and opens the door with an apologetic heart at all times, in all seasons, especially now.

Lastly, will we respond and rise to the challenge, or will we respond in fear and anger? These seem to be the defaults our culture wants the people to have: be fearful of what’s happening and what’s to come, or be angry toward your neighbor and fellow citizen because of what they believe and who they stand for.

This is not who you are.

Peace Proclaimer. Shalom bringer. Prayer warrior. Blessed in the midst of hardship. That’s who you are. That’s who we are. But the question remains, will we walk in who we’ve been created to be?

The consequence certainly doesn’t fit the crime. Grace upon grace we’ve been extended. The question remains, what will we do with the possible prosperity and blessing God wants to extend to you and me— to his church?

May we be blessed in Babylon because we allowed our hearts to be awakened to what God was doing, and so we got to work. Because we shined in the darkness. Day Thirteen FINDING THE FAMILIAR IN THE UNFAMILIAR They settled down to find out what it meant to be God’s people in the place they did not want to be—in Babylon. The result was that this became the most creative period in the entire sweep of Hebrew history. They did not lose their identity; they discovered it. They learned how to pray in deeper and more life-changing ways than ever. They wrote and copied and pondered the vast revelation that had come down to them from Moses and the prophets, and they came to recognize the incredible riches of their Scriptures. They found that God was not dependent on a place; he was not tied to familiar surroundings. The violent dislocation of the exile shook them out of their comfortable but reality- distorting assumptions and allowed them to see depths and heights that they had never even imagined before. They lost everything that they thought was important and found what was important: they found God. Eugene Peterson, Run With The Horses, p. 147

This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. (This was after King Jehoiachin and the queen mother, the court officials and the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the skilled workers and the artisans had gone into exile from Jerusalem.) He entrusted the letter to Elasah son of Shaphan and to Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. It said:

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.”

Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the Lord.

This is what the Lord says: “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. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to 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 will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:1- 14 NIV Have you ever found yourself in an unfamiliar situation or season? Maybe it was a new job. Or could it have been a recent move to a new city. It could even be a new home.

I’ve noticed being in unfamiliar situations and seasons has the ability to heighten our attention. These seasons have the ability to awaken certain things in our hearts and minds that wouldn’t have been awakened otherwise.

Recently I was reminded of this when I dropped off our youngest kid at school. All of our kids have gone to the same school for years. In fact, that school is where our church met for 6 years. So, for 6 years we went to this particular school for 6 days out of the week— Monday through Friday to drop our kids off and Sunday to worship.

It’s a very familiar place to our family.

But when I dropped Cannon off for the first time this year, everything all of the sudden became unfamiliar, and as a result, it heightened my attention and awakened my senses. Dropoff was at a new time. It was earlier, and earlier than early always peaks my attention, not in good ways. There were new teachers. Only 25% of the kids were in attendance, so the carpool lines were shorter. And of course, everyone was wearing masks.

This was an unfamiliar situation that certainly got my attention, that awakened my senses.

Sure, this can happen all the time in real life, but have you ever found yourself in an unfamiliar situation when it comes to your relationship with God? If you have, I can assure you this is not by accident.

You see, I find in my own life God tends to use the unfamiliar to get my attention and awaken my heart to him. It could also be said this way: God uses the unfamiliar to bring me back to the familiar— that is, bring back my attention to him and awaken my heart to him.

He finds a way to take me out of my familiar flow, my familiar comforts, my familiar schedule, and even out of familiar relationships. And when he does, he invites me into the unfamiliar. And here’s the most beautiful part—I find him.

God’s people found themselves in a very similar situation in their scattering, in their exile. Before exile, they were a people who’d been given an amazing land. They had been blessed beyond all belief when they lived in Jerusalem. And as we’ve talked about, they didn’t really handle blessing and prosperity well. They made bad choices. They elected bad leaders. And they took on bad priorities. In short, it got bad, quickly. Rather than immediately putting his people in an unfamiliar situation, he sent them familiar news. It was good news. It was reminders about who they were and who he is. They were reminders about them being a chosen people, and to be a light to the nations.

But word after word, prophet after prophet, and reform after reform, they didn’t listen.

As a result, God stepped in. He told them he would be taking them into exile. These are the things we now know. These are the things we’ve spent our time learning about, talking about, and praying through when it comes to our hearts.

Even though this has been a familiar journey for us by now, pouring over Jeremiah 29, it was not a familiar journey for the Hebrew people.

God was taking them into exile, into the unfamiliar, so that he could get their attention and awaken their hearts to Him. To quote Eugene Peterson again:

They found that God was not dependent on a place; he was not tied to familiar surroundings. The violent dislocation of the exile shook them out of their comfortable but reality-distorting assumptions and allowed them to see depths and heights that they had never even imagined before. They lost everything that they thought was important and found what was important: they found God.

It was the unfamiliar scattering of exile that opened their eyes to what should’ve been familiar all along—God. They found God.

In this journey we’ve been given some amazing steps of purpose in order to find the sacredness in the scattering, but we can’t lose the main point of this whole journey. The doing for God (our purpose) will always be secondary to God being our priority in life. Meaning, doing for God always comes secondary to getting God. We get God. That’s our prize as his people. Anything else is a disappointment. Believe me, I’ve been disappointed by the secondary things many times.

God’s closing invitation is what I want to close our time with today:

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you.

Unfamiliar scattering. Unfamiliar seasons and situations are always meant to grab our attention and awaken our hearts for God. I think we find ourselves currently in a season of awakening as Bright City, but even mire so as the church. And it’s in this unfamiliar season that we have a choice. Will we be awakened to what God is trying to do, and as a result, find the sacredness in this unfamiliar—in the scattering—or will we continue to miss the point.

When we truly seek God, he is found.

Church, I believe the unfamiliar place we find ourselves in is for an awakening. For our attention. God is calling. He’s asking us to seek Him. But we can’t seek with half our hearts. We must seek Him with all of our hearts.

Just like at school drop off, may our senses be heightened. May our hearts be awakened. May we find the familiar love, grace, and forgiveness of God, in the unfamiliar situations and circumstances. Day Fourteen PAUSE Pause, Reflect, and give yourself time to think about all you’ve read and experienced in exile this week. SECTION THREE THRIVING IN BABYLON Day Fifteen ON THE OTHER SIDE OF EXILE In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his god in Babylonia and put in the treasure house of his god.

Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring into the king’s service some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility— young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians.

The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service. Among those who were chosen were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names: to Daniel, the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abednego.

Daniel 1:1-7 NIV

There’s always a few parts to every story. Thus far in our journey together, we’ve looked at life as a scattered exile from the eyes of the prophet, Jeremiah.

It’s through that side of the story we’ve been able to see that embracing exile means to embrace what God might be doing in his people. Embracing exile is not an accident but a desired awakening beckoned from God, for his people. It’s a cry for our attention. It’s a gentle, gracious way of calling us back to him and away from all the ways we’ve strayed.

And once we’ve embraced the awakening of exile, we can find the sacred in the scattering. Even though we are in a season of what might feel like an exile right now, away from our normal sacred rhythms, God invites us to find the sacredness in the scattering. Even in the unfamiliar season of scattering, God still has a plan, purpose, and priorities for his people. But that’s not the only side of the story. What happens when we lay down the roots to find the sacredness in the scattering? What happens when we dig into Jeremiah’s letter found in Jeremiah 29 and really try to live this stuff out? What happens when we actually seek out God and the goodness of God in an unfamiliar land—an unfamiliar season?

Here’s what happens: we thrive in the unfamiliar. Or to put it in the context of our passage, when we embrace exile and find the sacredness in the scattering, we thrive in Babylon.

Daniel and his friends will be the other side of the story for the rest of our journey together. Jeremiah did the hard work of being faithful in Judah. Daniel and his friends did the hard work of being faithful in Babylon. In fact, looking back you can see they thrived in Babylon.

So what’s the big deal with “thriving in Babylon”?

That’s a great question and one I really look forward to answering as we dive into the next part of our journey, but let’s consider a few things before we move on to that in our next devotional.

Thriving in Babylon was a very big deal. Daniel and his friends were forced to live a certain, new way, far from the familiarity of their normal comforts and schedule. They were forced to serve under erratic leadership. They were separated from their friends and family. And here’s the bigger deal (at least to me): Daniel and his friends didn’t have the normal religious practices they grew up participating in while in the Jerusalem area. Here’s another way to say that: Daniel and his friends stayed faithful to God without having normal “church” gatherings for 70 years. Seventy years!

Right now I sense a lot of weariness among our people, among the church. Right now I sense a lot of people far from God because we are far from our regularly scheduled Sunday shot of Jesus that normally would get us to the next time we grace the church doors on a Sunday.

Like I said, there’s normally more than one side of the story. My prayer is that when we look at Daniel’s side of the story, we will move from weariness, that we will move from a dependency on a day, and move into a season of thriving with God, because you are made to thrive in this unfamiliar season we find ourselves in.

If Daniel were here, I know he would say over and over again, “There’s nothing special about me. There’s something very special about my God.” Maybe you’ve never heard this before, so I’m really excited to tell you: there’s nothing special about you and me, but there’s something really special about our God.

And our God lives in you and through you to thrive in the unfamiliar and scattered seasons.

I know our God will make you and me thrive in Babylon. Day Sixteen CONVICTION IN A CULTURE OF COMPROMISE Among those who were chosen were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names: to Daniel, the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abednego.

But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. Now God had caused the official to show favor and compassion to Daniel, but the official told Daniel, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you.”

Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.”

So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days. At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead. To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds. At the end of the time set by the king to bring them into his service, the chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar.

The king talked with them, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; so they entered the king’s service. In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom. And Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.

Daniel 1:6-21 NIV

How does one thrive in a world, in a culture, far from and very unfamiliar from home?

Here’s how: We must exercise and stick to our God-established conviction in a culture that will do whatever it takes to tempt us to compromise. In our reading today, we immediately see Daniel and his friends’ convictions being tested. The test was not a test of immorality. It was not a test of whether to steal or not. The test doesn’t even seem like a very consequential thing.

It was a selection of two different diets.

But to Daniel it represented a test of picking two different ways of life. Will I follow God, or will I follow Nebuchadnezzar? It was a test of loyalty, and because it was a test of loyalty, beneath the surface it was a test of worship. Will I worship God or will I worship this king?

This will not be the last of the loyalty tests for Daniel and his friends. They will be presented with many opportunities to compromise rather than hold to their God- given and God-established convictions.

Here’s the thing about compromising and convictions: I’ve noticed in my own life the enemy wants me to compromise the small things so he can work up to the big things.

A great example would be waking up early to spend time with God.

Once the conviction has been established by God in my heart, the soundtrack of compromise begins in the head. And let me tell you, it sounds as catchy as the soundtrack to Hamilton.

“God will still love you if you don’t get up early.” Isn’t it crazy that the enemy knows truth when it’s convenient for him? He all the sudden turns into some sort of biblical scholar and expert on the ways of Jesus.

“What’s the harm in watching one more show? We’re talking about tonight; God is talking about the morning!” But I know deep in my soul my morning starts with a decent bedtime.

The enemy of our souls will do whatever he can to cause compromise to the small and unseen areas of life that don’t seem like a big deal, because he knows compromise in the small things leads to compromise in the big things.

But here’s the thing the enemy would love for us to compromise in order to discourage our relationship with God (but he’s playing the bigger picture; we are playing checkers while he is playing chess): he wants us to compromise so that our neighbors, city, and world won’t see a church of conviction but a church of compromise. And if we become compromising Christians, God’s reputation takes a hit. You see, with Daniel it wasn’t about his reputation taking a hit, it was about God’s reputation taking a hit. He wanted his coworkers in Babylon to see that when you stick to the convictions God lays before his people, great things can happen in the culture around you.

When you have the conviction of generosity and you don’t compromise your generosity to God, the world will see your conviction.

When you use the wisdom of God to make decisions, especially everyday decisions, the world will see that conviction.

When you stick up for the least of these and the people who have become the object of racial hatred, the world will see that conviction.

When you hold to your convictions of spending time with God, and as a result the Fruits of the Spirit flow from your life, the world will see that conviction.

This was never about a dietary decision. This was about a young man determined to live out his conviction in a culture of compromise. And the rest is history.

Favor. Good health. A great attitude and performance at his job. The miraculous power of God at work in and through him in the everyday grind. Increased knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to do their jobs better. This was their fault.

The world wants us to think that compromise is the way to the top in this culture. But that’s not true, and that’s not how God works. Conviction is actually the way to the “top.” In fact, the world expects compromise from people, but the church has the ability to surprise with conviction.

Daniel and his friends lived with daily, simple, God-established convictions in a culture that compromised in every way. And when they did, they shined.

Thriving in this season, in “Babylon,” is not accomplished through compromising your walk with God. Thriving in this season will involve you (by the power of the Holy Spirit), living out your God-given and established convictions each and every day.

I don’t know how long this unfamiliar scattering season will last. But here’s the deal: let’s let it be marked not by our compromises, but by our convictions.

And when you do, you’ll thrive, but even more than that, you’ll shine. Day Seventeen POWERFUL PRAYERS He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Daniel 2:18 NIV

Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. Daniel 6:10 NIV

“In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom— in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.

So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: “Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land.

“Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame—the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you. We and our kings, our princes and our ancestors are covered with shame, Lord, because we have sinned against you. The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; we have not obeyed the Lord our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets. All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you.

“Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against you. You have fulfilled the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing on us great disaster. Under the whole heaven nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem. Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come on us, yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth. The Lord did not hesitate to bring the disaster on us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything he does; yet we have not obeyed him. “Now, Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we have done wrong. Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill. Our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us.

“Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. Give ear, our God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act! For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.” Daniel 9:1-19 NIV

Every now and again I will see an article posted to my Apple News Feed about the “Habits of the Highly Effective”:

This is what they eat.

This is when they wake up.

This is how they handle email.

This is how they put their underwear on.

Just kidding about that last one, but sometimes these articles get so detailed.

They get detailed because we want to know. We want to know how to do well and be successful.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who sees these articles and reads them. We live in a culture where “effectiveness” is king— and in some instances it’s god. The gospel they proclaim is, “If you want to make it big like them, if you want to taste success like them, be practical, efficient, and effective.”

Effectiveness is king in most cultures, and in ancient Babylon it was no different. They were a community and country of conquest. The Hebrew people were in Babylon because of their (the Babylonians’) effectiveness in conquest. They were good at it. Jerusalem and Judah weren’t the only cities that experienced the effectiveness of this wrath. Other cities and countries experienced it too—the effectiveness of their conquest was astounding.

They were a people always looking to grow in effectiveness. If you remember back to Jeremiah 29, the first people to be taken in exile were the most effective and successful Hebrew people who lived in Judah. If you made it big in Judah, if you did good things there, they were looking to take you to Babylon first.

In fact, when you get to Daniel 1, you get a picture of what they were looking to do to the Hebraic cultural leaders. They were wanting to make them far more effective: “Here’s how the most effective and successful in Babylon live. Here’s what they eat all day, and here are the latest leadership books they read.”

They were really looking to take away the spirituality of the Hebrew people and replace it with the practicality of Babylon.

And then there were Daniel and his friends. Willing to live out conviction and stiffarm compromise. But just resisting to resist is not helpful at all.

How specifically did Daniel make it—no, thrive—in Babylon for 70-plus years?

An even bigger question that speaks true to our day and age is, how did he thrive through multiple eccentric leaders who wanted to be worshipped? How did he make it from one leader to the next? How did he make it from one national conquest to the next? If you’ve ever read historically what was happening at this time (because it is historical), the Babylonians eventually were taken over as a world power by the Persians.

If you’re keeping score at home, Daniel was born and raised in Jerusalem/Judah, got exiled to Babylon by the Babylonians, and then was exiled among and served the Persians.

Old kings came and went. Their political staff—in and out. A thriving nation who conquered the known world and then was conquered by another nation. So much change except for one thing. Daniel.

With each change, he was there, still an advisor to each new king. With each new leader and new temptation to compromise, he stood in his convictions.

So how did he do all this? Prayer. He prayed first. He prayed fervently. He prayed often.

In Daniel 2:18, he was in a bad spot. He needed help. The only thing left to do was pray. And when he did, God came through.

I love the account of Daniel 6:10. It’s the same desperation. He was in a rough spot. He needed God to come through. But this wasn’t the “sharing the prayer requests at a family group/small group and never actually praying” kind of moment. This was the “God I need you” prayer, and he did it three times a day.

And here’s the part I’ve always loved. Where the windows opened towards Jerusalem, he prayed there. Was it because of bad ventilation or because he liked the view? Maybe. But here’s what I think, he needed to physically align his heart and eyes to something that reminded him of God’s faithfulness. Jeremiah was that reminder.

Sometimes when we’re praying we need to remember God’s faithfulness in the past, to storm heaven in prayer for a new future.

And lastly in Daniel 9, you’d think as Daniel’s life continued, his prayers would decrease. He’d seen a lot of things. He’d seen how a sovereign God works. He could have leaned more into the sovereignty of God than the power of prayer, but he didn’t. And when you continue to read in Daniel, you can see He was having a hard time getting an answer from God for some things he was praying about.

The Bible essentially says that for 21 days there was an unseen battle in the heavenlies between the forces of darkness and the forces of light, so that Daniel could not get an answer to something he was praying through.

Oftentimes I’m tempted to give up on a prayer if it doesn’t happen instantly. This account reminds me and encourages me that there's more than meets the eye— there’s more going on than we can see. Just because we’ve been praying and haven’t gotten an answer doesn’t mean God didn’t answer. Daniel in this moment learned the importance of continuing to pray, even when it feels hopeless or uncertain.

I began our devotional today talking about efficiency, practicality, and effectiveness.

These were the Babylonian idols and these are the idols of our current culture too. The enemy wants us to think prayer is laziness and true action is doing. Right now, activism is being championed more than ever.

Action and activism will be necessary for change, but we the church can’t “do” until we’ve cried out in desperation to God. Doing should always follow praying. We know how to do, because we’ve prayed.

And I pray Daniel’s story will be a testimony to that.

He received a lot of promotions, he endured multiple leaders, multiple hits on his life, and he endured living as a missionary for 70-plus years away from his true home. And most of all he endured being scattered, away from his true place of worship. I don’t wish these scenarios on anyone, but how do you endure all of the above and still love God passionately at the end of it all?

You pray. First. Fervently. Often. And watch God sustain and do the supernatural. Day Eighteen FIND YOUR CREW In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his god in Babylonia and put in the treasure house of his god. Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring into the king’s service some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility— young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace.

He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians. The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service. Among those who were chosen were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names: to Daniel, the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abednego.

But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. Now God had caused the official to show favor and compassion to Daniel, but the official told Daniel, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you.”

Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days. At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead. To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds. At the end of the time set by the king to bring them into his service, the chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. The king talked with them, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; so they entered the king’s service.

In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom. And Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus. Daniel 1:1-21 NIV

Recently I read the account of a powerful community that existed in the time of Hilter’s rule and reign. During this time, Hitler’s people were charged with the task of sifting the German church for those who were loyal to Hitler and those who were not.

The more and more sifting happened, the more people signed up to be loyal to Hitler rather than to be loyal to Jesus’s church. But there was a remnant of faithful followers led by a man named Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

His aim was to raise up a generation of Christ followers who would resist the pressures to conform to culture (the 3rd Reich in this case) and serve Jesus no matter what.

The details and power behind this faithful community can be read as the heart behind Life Together, one of Bonhoeffer’s famous works. In that book, he gives a compelling vision for a powerful community who seeks to serve Jesus no matter what.

In fact, as you re-read the accounts of what was happening at this time, it's clear they made it as far as they did because they did it together.

I believe the same is true for Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

These are the young men who were presented with the same temptation: conform to society or serve Christ. And I believe they made it as far as they did in Babylon because they committed to do it together—as a committed community.

If we’re going to not just make it in this pandemic and faithfully follow Jesus, we need a group of people, a committed community to do it with. It’s not lost on me that the savior of the world chose to model his ministry through and among a group of people. When He left this earth and left his Spirit, he chose to leave it to a community of people—the church.

Conviction to follow Christ is a team sport, and the quicker we learn this, the better off we will be in the long run.

As I’ve led this church, I’ve seen many groups come and go. I’ve seen many people come and go. There are some who seek to find their crew and tribe merely so they don’t have to be alone. They think if they only can find someone to hang with on the weekends and go to happy hour with, then all will be right in their world.

This type of life would be fine if the only aim of following Jesus was to not die alone. But that’s not the goal. The goal is to die faithful. And having friends to merely hang out and happy hour with might be fine, but they won’t make you faithful.

If we’re going to die faithfully following Jesus, you and I need a small crew of people around us to remind us to keep going on the hard days. We need people who are committed to us no matter what. We need people who see where we’re struggling and are willing to come alongside us to help carry the load.

A lot of people are willing to point out our struggles and how we’re not necessarily winning right now— few are willing to come alongside and help us win for Jesus.

I love Daniel’s crew God blessed him with in Babylon. They were a small group of people committed to being faithful to God no matter what presented itself to them.

I love how this crew remained committed to remind each other who they were— their identity. Babylon sought to change their identity—who they were. Their names meant something to God, and that’s why Babylon changed their names.

This world will try so hard to make you forget who you are in Christ. It will try and change your identity. You need a crew around you to remind you that you are a child of God. You are a part of His story and His plan. They can try and change your name, but they’ll never be able to change your identity.

When I think about what’s happening in Daniel 1, I picture Daniel and his friends calling each other by their God-given names. They needed to hear their names in the midst of the Babylonian culture—in the midst of so much change.

Not only did they need the identity reminders (and we need the identity reminders), they needed the faithfulness reminders. They as a group committed to eat a different way. They wanted to eat as a people of God and not a people of babylon. This again might seem like dietary semantics, but actually it was a desire to be faithful.

And when the enemy sees us trying to be faithful to something God has called us to, he will do everything he can to try and get us to respond unfaithfully.

When we commit to faithfully doing spiritual things, we will be met with resistance, and we need a crew around us to resist the resistance. To help us push through when it gets hard. To keep going when we’re exhausted and want to quit.

I can imagine there were a few days Daniel and his friends worked really hard and were tempted with a little dessert from the king's table. And if it wasn’t a dessert, maybe it was a good vintage wine. All good things on their own, but not when it contradicts seasons of faithfulness God might be calling you to.

It’s in those moments you need a crew to tell you to be faithful in the midst of temptation, despair, and even defeat.

Sometimes life is hard, and other times life is good. God is good. Things feel great. Life is full of blessings. It’s in these seasons we need a crew to celebrate God’s blessing and goodness.

You might be thinking, “Who doesn’t want to celebrate?! Who doesn’t want to eat, drink, and be merry?”

The older brothers—that’s who. (Read: The Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11-32) And God’s church is full of older brothers ready to “poop” God’s party.

Not all people will celebrate God’s faithfulness and blessings in your life. There are plenty of people who want to hold you down under their thumb. There will be people who are critical of you in every season, especially in your seasons of blessing. They will be jealous. They will be full of comparison. And they will respond in pride.

Make sure you’re a part of a crew that knows how to celebrate each other— who knows how to celebrate others. The Father welcomes celebration, and the older brothers unfortunately will do whatever they can to spoil the party. I’ve seen it too many times. I’ve spoiled a party or two as well.

Daniel and his friends had a lot to celebrate at the end of their test. They had stayed true to their identity. They had remained faithful to God. And God blessed them with promotion and prosperity. When you hear the names Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Adolf Hitler, you should have two very different responses. There’s a reason for this. One individual brought great harm with his community and the other brought great faithfulness and resolve to God with his community. Bonhoeffer and his friends remained faithful until the end because they were a community— they were a crew of people committed to having each other’s backs in one of the hardest times in history.

The same was true for Daniel.

But will the same be true for you and me? We are in a tough time in history. What will be your story, your outcome?

Find you a crew who is truly committed to Christ and each other, and I promise you’ll thrive in Babylon. Day Nineteen THE MIRACULOUS IS MEANT FOR THE WORLD In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his mind was troubled and he could not sleep. So the king summoned the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers to tell him what he had dreamed. When they came in and stood before the king, he said to them, “I have had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means.”

The king replied to the astrologers, “This is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble. But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and interpret it for me...This made the king so angry and furious that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon. So the decree was issued to put the wise men to death, and men were sent to look for Daniel and his friends to put them to death. When Arioch, the commander of the king’s guard, had gone out to put to death the wise men of Babylon, Daniel spoke to him with wisdom and tact. He asked the king’s officer, “Why did the king issue such a harsh decree?” Arioch then explained the matter to Daniel. At this, Daniel went into the king and asked for time, so that he might interpret the dream for him. Daniel 2:1-6

I became a Christian in a time where to be Christian was to be culturally cool. Maybe it was a response to previous generations? One generation would do everything they could to step away from and separate from culture. And then the next generation would have a strategy that’s the opposite to copy culture.

I remember going to a church that had a Gen X ministry. I would sneak into the back as a high schooler as they played a selection of U2 songs for worship. When I think back, I didn’t and don’t see anything wrong with this approach. After all, this is sort of what Jesus did.

Jesus entered into real time and real space. He put on real skin and really dwelled among us. In some ways he essentially blended in. Jesus came “eating and drinking” and his preferred dinner guests were not the religious, removed, and distanced from culture—his guests were people of the culture, the world. Just like the singing of U2 songs, Jesus found a way to bring the kingdom into the culture without separate Himself from culture.

Back to the Gen X movement.

After some time and after I grew a little in my walk with God, I noticed something develop from this approach of utilizing culture to bring people into the church. Before I tell you what I noticed, I want to be super clear: all generations are an incomplete picture of Christ. Together we get a lot of things wrong and some things right. And God uses it all how He wants to use it.

So what did I notice? In an attempt to bring Jesus into culture by being missional and living and dwelling among the people, we left some key things out in order to fit in.

Specifically, I noticed the miraculous being left out, because—let's be honest—the miraculous power of Jesus can be misunderstood and sometimes be perceived as VERY weird. And “weird” has a hard time settling well with people outside of the kingdom.

But here’s a wild thought: What if the miraculous power of God is needed now more than ever?

We’ve entered into an unprecedented time as a church and as a world. As we’ve been journeying with Jeremiah and Daniel, it would be safe to say they too were figuring out what it looked like to follow God in an unprecedented time.

When we look back to the account Daniel gives of his time serving the kings of Babylon and Persia, we see the supernatural at work in and through Daniel big time.

Let’s really look at the context. Being employed where he was employed (in the king’s palace), to fit in was to stay alive. Anytime someone didn’t fit in or conform, death was the consequence.

But here’s what I find interesting: even though there was the pressure to fit in, to be Babylonian, the kings really needed the supernatural power and miracles of God. In fact, it's God working through the miraculous and supernatural that stands out in a major way as Daniel effectively serves in Babylon.

I think the world needs and craves the miraculous more than they let on. I believe that, in a time like this, the supernatural miraculous works of God would go a long way. I believe people are desperately wanting to believe in something, someone...and the miraculous would give them the push over the edge of faith they need. So what does this mean for you and I and how we live?

What if God wants to accomplish supernatural and miraculous things in and through our lives? What if God wants us to spend less time playing it cool and more time walking in his supernatural power?

Normally I don’t get into the application details in our time together because I want God to speak. I want his spirit to move, guide, and direct. But for some of us, walking in the supernatural, miraculous power of God might be a little foreign. We’ve done quiet-time Christianity and Sunday-church Christianity, but to be a miraculous vessel of God’s power poured on the people around us might be a little less familiar.

And if I’m being honest, it can be very foreign to me too.

Now back to the question, how can we bring the supernatural and miraculous into the everyday routines and relationships we have?

The first step is to be available and listen to God. Daniel’s listening and availability came with a little more urgency, as his life was on the line. The king was going to kill him and his friends if the supernatural didn’t make itself known. Most of our lives are not on the line, so there’s not the same urgency, so we need to do our best to be aware of what God wants.

What’s God telling you to do in certain moments? Here’s the crazy thing about the voice and guidance of God. Every once and a while there’s a “voice” that’s very clear, but oftentimes God speaks to us in our gut. He gives us a gut feeling as to what is needed in the moment. This could be as simple as asking someone if you can pray for them and other times communicating something to others on behalf of God. God speaks to our conscious; he speaks to our gut, but we’ve got to get better about noticing when he speaks. He speaks when we make space. It can be a short pause or a thirty-minute pause. God doesn’t need much to make his will and way known.

Once God speaks, guides, and directs, the next step is to do. This is the hard part. This is where faith meets the follow through. I wish I could say, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen God move in this way.”

Instead I humbly admit that I can’t tell you how many times God has put something on my heart, spoken something into my gut or conscious, and I’ve not followed through in faith. There have been so many times when we’ve gathered as a church and God has said, “Go pray for the healing of that person,” or, “Go tell this person what I’m about to tell you,” and I’ve been too scared.

I sit here with you and affirm with you, the faith-filled follow through is the hardest thing we’ll ever do, but I know the reward is very great. There’s a joy God wants us to have, and those around us to have when we both see the miraculous power of God at work.

I grew up in a time where the church offered a Christianity that blended in. And it did what it did by the grace of God. But I can’t help but wonder, in this time, in this season, if the world needs a miraculous Christianity.

Daniel found God in a pagan place and time because he was willing to listen to God and follow through in faith. As a result, he saw the supernatural power of God at work like never before.

Daniel saw a lot of “religious reform” and “revival” growing up under Josiah’s reign. But I wonder how that compared to seeing God move and shift a king who didn’t even know God in a land that didn’t know God?

The miraculous is meant for the world.

And here’s an even bigger truth: you were meant to bring the miraculous into the world. Day Twenty FIELDS + WINDOWS Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me: Hanamel son of Shallum your uncle is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth, because as nearest relative it is your right and duty to buy it.’ “Then, just as the Lord had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and said, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. Since it is your right to redeem it and possess it, buy it for yourself.’ “I knew that this was the word of the Lord; so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver. I signed and sealed the deed, had it witnessed, and weighed out the silver on the scales. I took the deed of purchase—the sealed copy containing the terms and conditions, as well as the unsealed copy— and I gave this deed to Baruch son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of my cousin Hanamel and of the witnesses who had signed the deed and of all the Jews sitting in the courtyard of the guard. “In their presence I gave Baruch these instructions: ‘This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Take these documents, both the sealed and unsealed copies of the deed of purchase, and put them in a clay jar so they will last a long time.

For this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.’

“This is what the Lord says: As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them. Once more fields will be bought in this land of which you say, ‘It is a desolate waste, without people or animals, for it has been given into the hands of the Babylonians.’ Fields will be bought for silver, and deeds will be signed, sealed and witnessed in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the Negev, because I will restore their fortunes, declares the Lord.”

Jeremiah 32:6-15, 42-44 NIV

Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.

Daniel 6:10 NIV We’ve reached the end of our study. We’ve talked about what it looks like to embrace “exile.” We’ve asked God to help us find the sacredness in the scattering. Most recently we’ve discussed what it would look like to thrive in Babylon.

And now we close our time with a story about a field and windows.

What do a field and windows have in common? Great question.

With every turn in Jeremiah and Daniel’s journeys through the Babylonian exile, there were really hard days. There were days when God would ask Jeremiah to bring a really hard word to his people. Oftentimes these words spoken would contradict most preachers preaching at this time.

I can’t imagine what that would’ve felt like. As a pastor and preacher in a time of social media, if I started saying hard things that contradicted 99% of the sermons people heard through podcasts or YouTube, the ridicule and scrutiny would be great. The social media posts and comments would be numerous.

Again, I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for Jeremiah. And this doesn’t even account for the feelings he felt as his fellow Hebrews lost everything and were forced to relocate to a foreign land.

The ministry and life of Jeremiah was quite hard.

And then there was Daniel.

Daniel had really hard moments as well. Sure he lived in the king’s palace among the royalty of Babylon, but this too came at a price. Daily he was confronted with the opportunity to compromise or live out his God-given convictions.

And with each conviction lived out came consequences. His life was often threatened and once included a trip to the lion’s den because he refused to worship and show approval to a particular political leader.

With each challenge Daniel stood tough and held his convictions. But even finding success in this way was really hard.

Daniel too lived a very tough life. His ministry was quite hard.

We too find ourselves in a very tough time. And as we sit in this current season and time, we don’t know the end. I’ve really tried to make it very clear in our time together that we can find God in tough times. We’re experiencing a pandemic that compares to nothing we’ve ever faced.

And with the pandemic, there will be fallout from all that’s happened. In fact as I write this, the fallout has started.

People are losing jobs. Whole industries are having to close. Most people are figuring out what it means to work remotely. Speaking of working remotely, people are relocating from extreme urban centers due to high costs and quality of living. In the past they tolerated the urban life for work, but now work can happen anywhere.

It’s not just adults who are working through this challenging change. As I write this, our kids are currently working on their schoolwork beside me from the kitchen table and the living room.

When we read Daniel and Jeremiah, we’re fortunate enough to see the end. But Daniel and Jeremiah didn’t see the end while living in the midst of their hard season like us. They only saw the present.

So how did they make it through? How did they persevere in an unprecedented time?

They kept the faith.

Not only did they keep the faith, they exercised the faith through action.

For Jeremiah, he exercised faith by buying a field.

You might be wondering, how is buying real estate in Jerusalem a step of faith?

Jeremiah buying a field at this moment would be like you or I buying a beachfront house made out of paper while a category 5 hurricane turned towards our house. We’d be going through the closing process while the fine folks at the Weather Channel signed as witnesses to our new real estate transaction while leaning into the wind and reporting live. Buying a beach front paper house during a CAT 5 hurricane makes no sense.

The enemy was marching in, and God told Jeremiah to buy a field in the middle of war. And here’s why: he wanted it to be a faith-filled picture of restoration for all God’s people to see. By faith, Jeremiah was showing everyone visibly that God was not done with his people or city.

It communicated to the people from God, “This land, this place will be useful and used by me again.”

What about Daniel and his windows? As we’ve said, Daniel strategically prayed, facing Jerusalem for the faith-filled reminder that Babylon didn’t have the final word. God does. God was going to restore his people and his world. There would be a season of hardship, but restoration and renewal would be on the other side.

Daniel prayed facing Jerusalem because it was his faith-filled response to the hard circumstances he faced. It was his physical reminder that God was not done with His people.

We too find ourselves in the midst of a hard circumstance as a church, country, and world. Now what will be our faith-filled response?

How will we continue to align ourselves with the promised renewal and restoration God wants to bring? What can we physically do right now to remind ourselves and declare God is not done with His church or the world?

Maybe there’s a vision or dream you’ve had tucked away for a while? A business idea? A ministry that needs to be launched? Maybe there’s something you’ve always wanted to learn? Or a degree you’ve always wanted to start?

The world will do everything it can to cause you to respond in fear, but the people of God speak the language of faith.

Daniel prayed towards Jerusalem to exercise visible faith.

Jeremiah bought a field during a war to display visible faith.

The question remains, what will we do in this time to display our visible faith?

It might seem weird to exercise visible faith, in belief of an invisible God, during visibly hard circumstances, but it’s just how God would want it.

Our time together is done, but God is not done. Buy the field. Open the window and pray toward Jerusalem. Whatever God has written on your heart—do it in faith and watch Him bring restoration and renewal. Day Twenty One PAUSE Pause, Reflect, and give yourself time to think about all you’ve read and experienced in exile this week.