Plan to Stay Where God Calls You
In light of my recent book, Making Peace with Change, I thought it fitting to repost an old article on transition. It's based on thoughts from Jeremiah 29, a passage that has come to be a meaningful one to me when it comes to this topic. If you're new to my blog and you subscribe below, you can get a longer version of my reflections on this passage. Leaving home is hard. Finding home is harder. We live in southeast Orlando, in one of the fastest-growing neighborhoods in the country. Few of us are "from" here. It's a transient community. Many of us never anticipated living in Florida, of all places. It feels like somewhere between where we were and where we plan to go, not home. We all face the challenge of how to carve out a new life here in this place to which God has called us. Like I said, it's hard to find home. Sometimes, it's because we're looking elsewhere. Maybe we can't settle where we are because we are looking back on the life we had. We miss the community we left, our favorite coffee shop, our old job, or the life we had before kids. Or we peer ahead to what is coming-the season when kids won't be in diapers, or we'll get that better job, when school will be over, or we're finally married. It's hard to dig in right where we are and live it fully. But if we dwell on the past, we won't see what God is doing in the here and now. If we focus on the future, we miss the blessings of today. We will not find home until we plan to stay. In Jeremiah 29:5-7, God told the exiled Israelites, "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters . . . Increase in number there; do not decrease." Strange words to give to people wholly displaced. The Israelites did not want to stay there. They wanted another, a different life. This season was supposed to be temporary. The fact is, this world is not our true home and never will be. We are on a journey from where we were when God found us to where He will take us in the end. Where we are now is exactly where He wants us to be. So how do we make it home? Invest where you are God told the Israelites to build homes and settle down. Life is different when you own something. You put in time, money, and energy to make it a place you want to stay. Finding home means living like we aren't renters but owners of this life, however long the season might be. We give fully of ourselves to the people and places in this season God's given us, believing that it is worth this time. Investing is hard because it means we pour pieces of our hearts into this season that…