Finding Grace in the Place You’re Ready to Leave
Even when tomorrow calls you away, God calls you to live faithfully where you are planted today.
Perhaps you woke today feeling out of place living in a city your heart wants to leave. Whether you're there for school, work, or an uncertain season, the longing to go back or go forward can feel powerful and isolating. Yet Scripture offers surprising guidance for exactly this experience.
The Call to Exiles in Babylon
Jeremiah’s letter to the Israelite exiles provides a powerful model for such hard seasons “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce… take wives and have sons and daughters… seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you” (Jeremiah 29:4‑7).
God instructs those who long to leave to live fully where they are. Though Babylon is not home or part of the promised land, God calls them to settle, work, love, and pray for the city’s flourishing—even while exiled.
Planted by the Gardener
Jeremiah begins “God… whom I have sent into exile” (29:4).
Nebuchadnezzar acted, but God is sovereign even over exile. Samuel Rutherford described God as a gardener who plants us purposefully in unlikely soil. Whether our place feels barren or beautiful, it is from God’s hand. And though life may feel exiled, there is a Master Gardener watching and working.
When Boxes Stay Packed
Many exiles kept their hearts on Jerusalem and their boxes unpacked. But God commands rooted living: planting, building, parenting. If we constantly live expecting departure, we miss fruitfulness in the present. Unpacking may not mean forever but it invites life now. Even temporary soil can yield beauty when we root deeply.
Staying to Make Disciples
Jeremiah 29:7 doesn’t just call for personal peace it calls for communal purpose “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you.”
Jesus often sent people back home not to return physically, but to witness there (Luke 8:39). Whether exile or familiarity, God gives us people and places around us worth praying for, worth serving, worth reaching.
Exiles Until Heaven
God’s people have always been sojourners, even in their homeland (1 Peter 2:11). The real home is God’s eternal dwelling (Psalm 90:1; John 14:2). Every reminder of displacement should awaken in us deeper hope. Our longing isn’t misplaced it’s confirmation of our true citizenship in the coming kingdom.
Loving Where You're Planted
Unpack your boxes. Build community, deepen roots, serve the city.
Take every opportunity small or large to plant kindness and connection.
Pray for your city. Seek its peace and flourishing, even if your heart is elsewhere.
Remember you are a pilgrim, and exile points to home.
You may one day move. God may yet transplant you. But until then believe there is purpose here. Let your heart rest in the wisdom of the Gardener, and find life where you are planted. The soil may not be home, but it can still bear fruit.
If this seasons your heart toward peace and purpose, share it or subscribe to our newsletter for more gospel‑centered encouragement through your own exiles.
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