The Call to Settle
What She Said - Part 7
Sarah Didier Jefferson
Today’s Treasure
Build houses and settle down…
Jeremiah 29:5
“They want me to take a new position … a promotion,” my husband explained, slightly hesitating as he added, “but we’d have to move to Dallas.” We would nervously chuckle as we talked and prayed over it. “How bad could it be? After all, Texas is the promised land, right? The Bible-belt. The All-American state.”
This is where you should say, “bless her heart,” like all the good southern women do when you kind of want to gasp at the depths of such naive thinking. As if living in Texas would be some perpetual Wednesday night dinner with like-minded people and a potluck dinner every night. So, we packed up everything we owned in Georgia — three children, 8, 5, and 1, two dogs and one cat — and moved 900 miles from everything we knew and loved.
There is an underlying narrative in the Christian community that following Jesus will be easy. After all, we love to quote Jeremiah 29:11 that tells us of the great plans He has to prosper us. But Texas did not feel like a plan of prosperity, filled with hope. It felt lonely and exclusive, without any room for us. VBS full. Bible studies full. Sports teams full. We were even on a waiting list to join our church.
So what do you do when a verse plucked right out the pages of Scripture just doesn’t feel true? You give it context with more —Scripture.
In this case, Jeremiah 29:4-7 tells us:
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.
The truth is, we cannot pluck a verse from the pages of Scripture and put it over the hard of our lives like some cure-all Band-Aid. Yes, it hurts. Oh, how we’re stripped down and fully engulfed in the Refiners fire. Exiled. But even there, we must dig deeper into God’s word and allow the hard to do its work.
These commands in verses 4-7 to build, settle, increase, seek peace and prosperity, to pray - they are all the commands that preceded God’s promise of good plans and deliverance from exile. Have you settled into this place, these circumstances, this hard God has for you? Have you earnestly prayed for peace and prosperity in this present darkness?
When we agreed to move, we had everything going for us in Georgia, beautiful friendships, and all of our family lived there. Often I would look on social media and it gutted me. Family gathered without us. Friends made memories that didn’t include us. And each beautifully filtered square turned the dagger a little more.
In Exodus 16:3 we read:
The entire Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat and ate all the bread we wanted. Instead, you brought us into the wilderness to make this whole assembly die of hunger!
Like the Israelites, I would be driving down Texas roads and out of nowhere this thought or memory would barge in and flood my mind with a million different emotions, instantly plunging me right into the realm of grumbling and whys.
Why would You move us here?
Why can’t we find community?
God, Your word says, …no good thing do You withhold (Psalms 84:11) — where is the good here?
Lean in with me here. The Good Thing that He does not withhold is Himself. “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”( Hebrews 13:5)
Yes, we may endure the loss of many good, precious things, but His presence is a promise you can build your life upon.
But the question remains — do we desire the presence of God in our lives more than the precious things God can place in our lives? Is the chief end of our lives to bring glory to God? If there is any conviction here, we must enter a season of repentance.
The Lord kept prompting me, “Sarah, with all that’s not here and in the not yet, the not right now’s and flat out no’s— am I enough?”
The Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast desert. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything.
Deuteronomy 2:7
LIFE-GIVING ENCOURAGEMENT
Do you feel like you’re lacking? Do you feel like He is withholding? Tell Him! Oh, how we miss the beauty of walking out our faith when we are not honest in our prayers. He already knows our hearts. Give words to it, but ask Him, “God where is the truth in this?”
The hard circumstances and seasons in our lives are the very invitations to transformed living—that Romans 12 renewed mind. Then by His grace, we can pray the bold prayers in Jeremiah 29 to seek the peace and prosperity in the midst of our darkest hours. And as we do, we catch glimpses of Jesus—the point of it all in the midst of it all.
PRAYER
Lord, change is hard. Loss is hard. Suffering is hard. Would You renew our minds to see You in the midst of it all? Give us focused eyes to see the good You have for us here and now. Forgive us that we so often lose sight of the very thing we can never lose—You!
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Sharon W. Betters is author of Treasures of Encouragement, Treasures in Darkness, co-author of Treasures of Faith. and co-author with Susan Hunt of Aging with Grace, Flourishing in an Anti-Aging Culture. She is Director of Resource Development and co-founder of MARKINC.org, a non-profit organization that offers help and hope to hurting people. Sharon enjoys quality time with her husband, children, fourteen grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Contact Sharon with comments or questions at dailytreasure@markinc.org.