When someone is barred from their native country, they are living in a state which can be termed exile. Someone has shared that life during Covid19 has some experiences that might relate to this concept of feeling estranged from a known and loved land.

God’s people were sent into exile, to Babylon, by God himself.  To bring his people, who were neglecting him and his ways, back to himself, he sent them to a place where everything that was familiar and comfortable was stripped away.  Surrounded by the unfamiliar, God’s people found themselves alone, lonely, uncomfortable, and grieving the loss of familiarity and home. We read what the experience was like in the following words.

 Alongside Babylon’s rivers
    we sat on the banks; we cried and cried,
    remembering the good old days in Zion.
Alongside the quaking aspens
    we stacked our unplayed harps;   (Psalm 137:1-2 The Message)

Another translation reads, “There on the poplars we hung our harps”.  Things not in use are often hung up.  More than likely, at the back of your closet, are things hung, not in use during this season. For instance, your winter jacket.   In our garage it is the hockey skates and bags which are hung for this season. God’s people hung their harps.  They were having a hard time singing in exile.

That’s where our captors demanded songs,
    sarcastic and mocking:
    “Sing us a happy Zion song!”

Oh, how could we ever sing God’s song
    in this wasteland?  (Psalm 137:3-4).

Fixing their eyes on what had been, ‘the glory days’ was natural. Home, Jerusalem, had been their greatest joy. But God told them that while in exile, which would last 70 years, they were to settle down and build houses and plant gardens.  In other words, they were not to wait for things to return to normal to experience life.  Normal was not on the near horizon (Jeremiah 29:5-8). Life would be found in listening to their God and his ways, living with him, and singing his songs to him, even in exile!

We may feel we have had to hang up our harps.  For the church it may be our musical instruments and even voices, for worship cannot be what it once was.  Into this experience, somewhat likened to exile, God speaks to us what he spoke through Jeremiah to his people.  “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” 

Our God is more than able to lead the future. If led by him, it will be new and glorious.  That future is not when Covid19 is over, it is today. Let’s not hang up our harps.  Let’s continue to sing to the God who is always at work making a way, and may we seek his will during these days!

492: God Will Make A Way     (Don Moen)

God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me

He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way, He will make a way

By a roadway in the wilderness, He'll lead me
And rivers in the desert will I see
Heaven and Earth will fade but His word will still remain
And He will do something new today

God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me

He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way, He will make a way.

God of yesterday and today, we sing with one another these words,

“You are
Way maker, Miracle worker, Promise keeper
Light in the darkness
OUR God, that is who You are
You are
Way maker, Miracle worker, Promise keeper
Light in the darkness
OUR God, that is who You are.”

Cause us, living God, to rest in who you are even during these days which are far from what is comfortable and familiar.  AMEN. 

With care and in prayer,