Moving Forward

“Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters… And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the LORD for it; for in its peace you will have peace.” Jeremiah 29:5-7

When my husband and I received job offers 600 miles north of our childhood homes, we packed up and moved. We literally did not know where our new house was located; we only knew that one was being provided for us by our employer. After driving all night and half a day with a U-Haul loaded down with our lives, we found our new home. We had not seen this dwelling place, and it’s a good thing. I would have died a thousand deaths thinking of what a “step down” we had taken as far as the “looks” of our home. It was made of slump stone (a building material we were unfamiliar with), had a woodstove instead of central heating, and a swamp cooler instead of air conditioning. The swamp cooler was broken, and the temperatures soared to 115 degrees those first few days. We were new to north state living, and I hated it already.

I felt like a prisoner with no friends, no church family, and no relatives. Peacocks lived on the 350-acre parcel where our home was located, and they ran across the top of our van and our home’s roof and made a quite a racket (not to mention scratching the paint off everything). Guinea hens about the property made more noise than I’ve ever heard come out of a bird’s beak (I didn’t even know there were such creatures.) One day a cow broke down a fence and stared at me through our sliding door as I ate my breakfast. Another time, a cow was trying to give birth and out of her hind end stuck long legs and feet; we called the property owners and watching with dropped jaws as a cowboy put chains around those sticking-out feet, attached it to a truck hitch, and pulled that calf out. It plopped to the ground, wet and bawling. This city girl was not having fun.

I felt like a captive in my new home—there was no reason to go out, no one to visit, no friends to worship beside. Scary critters lived outside. Skunks, snakes, raccoons, and, you know, stray cows.

We knew God had brought us to this place, but it felt like I was in a holding pattern. It wasn’t real, was it, this new life of mine? I wanted to go back to the familiar so badly.

The Scripture above speaks to this. God was saying to His people, “I have arranged this for you. Now you are to settle in and make a life. Build houses. Plant gardens. Get married. And while you’re at it, pray for the people around you, because if they are at peace, you will be at peace.”

Are you captive to God-ordained circumstances that are not what you were hoping for? God says you have a life to do something with. He has given what you need and is urging you to move forward. “Marry and have kids” means that in your current circumstances, you are to increase, not diminish. Don’t sit and waste away, waiting for things to change. If you are in some kind of captivity, start praying for your captors (I hope, for you, this is metaphorically speaking of something spiritual or emotional, not physical!) “Pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you…” (Matthew 5:44b).

Father, we know that You give and You take away, and You have a reason for everything You do. Help us be surrendered to You in all things, and to increase spiritually while we are in this difficult place. Amen.