70 Years In Babylon

There is a need, I think, to find ourselves in the biblical narrative. We must find our struggles in the lives of our heroes and take solace in their victory in spite of their many troubles.

Realizing they were men and women made of dirt just like us, we find peace with being "only human" again.

I have found such comfort in the Israelite's captivity in Babylon.

Think about Jeremiah's words:

"After seventy years are completed, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 

For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope."

Many of the pages of our story are tales about Babylon. We spend our lives dreaming of Jerusalem. In our hearts, we know we are not Babylonians, we know this isn't who we are, or where we really belong. We are great singers, or writers, or wildlife photographers (I'm grasping at straws here) or whatever you are.

But for the time being we live in Babylon.

I have no answer for these seasons, only compassion for my fellow exiles. I used to have answers about these sorts of things, and catchy spiritual slogans like, "waiting time, isn't waisted time".  I'm not even sure what that even means.

Now I have only the patience that time has taught me, and a well tested gaze which I have spent looking towards the mountains from whence cometh my deliverance.