Finding Purpose in the Pause

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon,' Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." Jeremiah 29:4-7 ESV

How do you handle the pause? No, I'm not talking about commas in sentences, but the actualy pauses. In life. Like the one that we are quite literally in at this present moment. How do you handle when life slows down to such a pace that you can actually see the blades of grass gather dew in the morning, or feel the wind as it tickles the back of your neck on a beautiful Spring day? If you are anything like me, even as an introvert, life right now has you in a weird place. Usually there would be something that you have to do, some place to be. There would be some activity for your child(ren) to be shuttled away to, some takeout to order, or some conversation that needs to be had. There would be some Pastoral duty to fill, some worship night to attend, or an auxiliary meeting to conduct. Life would be busy, but good, and we would not be as aware of time ticking away.

Yet, here we are in a moment where we are painfully aware of everything that is happening around us. We hear the ticking and tocking of the second hand on the clocks in our minds and everything eithin us is screaming that we need to be doing something. That we need to be somewhere. That we need to be with someone.

It's the pauses that put us into weird places.

But imagine that you were an entire nation of people who were caught in a decades old pause. Imagine a pause so severe that you had been relocated away from everything that you hold dear. Imagine experiencing the pause of your life being taken from where you presently are, and then dropped into a foreign land, where all that you had time to do was think about the good ole days and pine for the ways of yesteryear. Here is where the Israelites found themselves after being captured and taken away into Babylon as exiles. And as they sat in that strange place, their lives had been placed on pause, reminiscing about what might have been in the present, and what will be in the future, God interrupts their mental placeholding.

God tells them that instead of panicking during the pausing of their lives, He would have them prosper during the pause. Build houses. Get married. Plant gardens. Have parties. Host watch parties. Start small groups. Pray for the benefit of this strange land. In other words, find the purpose in the pausing. At first glance, this sounds ludicrous. How could they build houses? How could they even think about getting married at a time like this? Plant a garden? Say what, now? Yet, a closer look reveals the truth behind God's words. He is telling them to not waste the moment that they have. Take advantage of it. Don't let a good crisis go to waste. God knew that the longer they sat inactive during this pause, they would be wont to fall into depression or gaze forlornly into ways of life that were not in His will for them. So essentially, He tells them to not have an idle mind or idle bodies. Get your butts up and DO SOMETHING!!!

Prosper in the pause. You are reading this now with more time to read than you've probably ever had in your life. What are you doing with that time? God has redeemed all of the time you've not had till now, and He is looking expectantly at you to see how you will steward it. I hope you can hear the echoes of every time you have uttered the phrase, "I just don't have the time", because if you can remember what you never had tie to do before, you can hopt to it right now. God desires that you prosper right now during the pause in your life, so that you may honor the gifts that He has placed within you for His glory. Yet in order to prosper during the pause, you must...

Find purpose in the pause. Where is the book that you were supposed to write? The blog you should have started? The music you still need to put on paper? The script for a pilot episode that you keep replaying in your head? The business idea that needs to become a business plan? The ministry desire that has an audience, but no one to put it into action? What should you be doing that runs concurrent with the purpose that God has placed deep inside of you? That art desire that you have always put off? That career that doesn't exist yet that needs to? Now is the time to explore it. Now is the time to let that dream become a seed planted toward becoming fruit in due season. Now is the time to live out that purpose!

All of those prayers, and all of those excuses have come to a head. Now is the time. You can't deny it. You know it. In the midst of an unprecedented time in our lifetimes, God has placed a comma in the grand scheme of our lives to allow for some unprecedented things to happen in our lives. Looking back at Israel in exile, God knew that if they could prosper during exile, when they were released, they would already be running the race and keeping pace with what God desired for them. If they could explore their God-given purpose in less than optimal circumstances, then imagine how much more they could do when life returned to normal after the pause?

The pause is never permanent. There will be an other side. There will be a new normal. ANd see, God is not asking you to finish. He's only asking you to START! What you do with this time that you have been allotted is going to determine a lot about how the rest of your life will play out, so don't waste it. Make everything of it that you can.

Prosper and Find Purpose. Be blessed.