happy in our slavery

Jeremiah 29 is a chilling chapter. Well, it is to me at least. Israel has been cast into exile, into slavery. In this chapter, Jeremiah is telling the people of Israel what God told him. God tells them:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. (Jeremiah 29:5-6)

God is telling His people to continue their lives. In slavery. Where they don't want to be. Just so we are on the same page- let's go over this. Israel can't go home. Israel isn't "staying in a hotel down the street because their house is being fumagated" kind of can't go home. This is hard. The people are miserable.

In the chapter prior to this, the prophet Hananiah told the people that God told him (Hananiah) that he (God) would free the slaves of Babylon in two years.

That is great news. If it were true. God spoke to Jeremiah, telling him, "Go, tell Hananiah, 'This says the Lord: You have broken wooden bars, but you have made in their place bars of iron. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I have put upon the neck of all these nations an iron yoke to serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they shall serve him, for I have have given everything to him even the beasts of the field." (Jeremiah 28:13-14)

At this moment- the people of Israel have no hope. They are in a place they don't want to be, and they just found out that their God just sold them out. The last thing they wanted to do was start a family in the conditions they were facing.

We come to verse 7 of Chapter 29 which reads, "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."

This verse is what gets me every time. It is so insanely powerful! Instead of hating this place, God tells them to pray for it. Not to pray that it gets destroyed, but that is flourishes!

There are lots of times I don't enjoy my situations, but when I read this verse it clicked- I don't get to choose my situations, surroundings, or conditions. As a follower of God, I simply obey. That is easier said than done, but the second part of the verse acts as reassurance. "For in its welfare you will find your welfare." Think about that.

When was the last time that you prayed for your company? When was the last time that you prayed for your landlord? Your boss? Your teacher?