Ora Et Labora.

“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.” (Jeremiah 29:5)

During Sunday’s sermon Pastor Art said, “God can draw straight with crooked lines.” In this experience of exile, when we feel like everything is thrown out of sync and we are mourning the loss of the familiar, God calls us to continue walking on the straight path of obedience and submission to His will.

For some of us, the honest truth is that we don’t want to settle down in Babylon. Why does God call us to establish residency in the land we hate? Why does He tell us to sweat and labor and till the cursed ground?

But there’s more than sweat involved: in tandem with the work, the people of God were called to pray for the land in which they had been exiled. “Pray to the LORD (for the prosperity of the city), because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:7). Perhaps the hard work is a way of putting ‘hands and feet’ to the prayers, a tangible way of saying to God and to the world, “Yes, I am fully invested in God’s project. Though He has exiled me, I will honor Him by being a good neighbor in this strange community. Though my heart longs for Jerusalem, I will be a productive, praying resident in Babylon.”

Exile still hurts. And the building of houses and the cultivating of gardens, whether actual or metaphor, aren’t overnight processes. They take time. Effort. Planning. Patience. But the day will come when we can enjoy the home, enjoy the food, enjoy the beauty that emerges out of the pain of being exiled.

In the meantime, work and pray.