“Pray to the Lord for Babylon, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:7)

Google Maps, Waze, Apple Maps. How did drivers ever navigate the spaghetti-noodle chaos of intersecting highways without them? When all around us are confusing signs and unfamiliar landscapes, we need someone to tell us the way forward. Stopping the car on the highway and crying in despair and fear, while tempting, is not the answer!

Facing seventy years of exile in Babylon, the Israelites find themselves in their own spaghetti-noodle chaos. Nothing is familiar. They have little to none of their belongings. Babylonian culture is foreign and, well, pagan. God tells them the way forward is to settle down, build houses, plant gardens, marry, and have children (vs.5-6). I imagine they’d rather hunker down in despair and fear. Or segregate into a for-exiles-only ghetto.

But what would that lead to? They’d become tightly knit Israelites-in-exile, avoiding any hint of association with “those pagans.” They would never be God’s light to the nation. 

But God doesn’t want the Israelites to assimilate either. Becoming part of the chaos around them isn’t the way forward. They need to navigate between retreating from Babylon culture altogether and being absorbed into it. Neither is God’s plan for their refinement or Babylon’s blessing. 

God commands His people to settle down and rebuild their lives (vs. 5-6). But God doesn’t stop there because, if they follow that instruction, they’ll have built a community in retreat, for their good only. God continues: “ALSO, seek the peace and prosperity of the city” (v. 7, emphasis mine). 

What if managing the chaos and bitterness of life in exile means focusing on someone else? Making their lives better by engaging with them and praying for them? God promises, “If [they] prosper, you too will prosper” (v.7). What if changing focus from “captive” to “resident alien” helps the navigation process? God appointed their circumstances. He “carried them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon” (v.4). Bitterness and withdrawal won’t change His tactics. Blessing is available; God promises to “prosper them, to give them hope and a future” (v.11). 

The wise course is to focus on blessing, then, not misery. Settle into the community. Engage with those they consider enemies. That’s the direction the Israelites need to follow to emerge from the chaos of bitterness and foreign surroundings. 

Get comfortable. 

The greater the chaos, the greater our trust in God’s directions should be. Navigating forward may be scary. It may be uncomfortable. It may mean engaging with “the enemy.” But we’ll be moving out of the chaos of feeling directionless toward receiving blessing. Lord, thank you that Your word is the wisest navigation app.