Celebrate Hope: Looking Back Stepping UpSample

 Prosperous Hope

Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. - Jeremiah 29:7 

Where does your hope come from? The question came to me as I awoke and contemplated when to actually get up. Flat on the bed, I stared at the ceiling, feeling the weight of circumstances of people whose skin looks like mine. I turned to my side and saw tears from the night before had stained my pillow. I considered our struggles: why we keep going, how we keep living, what gives us reason to hope? I realize the answer is God. 

In the midst of their grief, self-inflicted due to their disobedience, God gave words of hope for the Israelites through His prophet Jeremiah. God spoke to encourage and strengthen and tell them to keep living, even in captivity. God commanded them to build houses, marry, have children—and pray for the land of their captors, Babylon. As the land prospered, the Israelites would also. God affirmed He had established the circumstances but also a limit on those circumstances, saying their exile would end in seventy years. God let the people know He had good plans for them. 

What God said to them is for us too. God is with us in our present struggle, pain, frustration, and grief, including the oppressions we feel as a people. God reminds us to live, and He says these troubles won’t last always. He will give us grace even amid struggle now, and bless us with a future and a hope. —Kesha Wilkinson

What does it look like to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city” in your circumstances?

Lord, help me to prosper where You’ve placed me. Even if it feels like exile, remind me that a prosperous hope can still be found in You.