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An Embrace from the Church Family
In the late 1990s, the youth of First United Methodist Church of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, were burdened Read More
Kate Obermueller Unruh | Read Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
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Sign Up TodayBloom where you are planted. Handstitched and framed in blue, these words adorned the wall of my grandmother’s kitchen. My mother repeated them to me during my first semester away at college, when I got my first job a thousand miles from home, and many times since. That old blue...
In what places of discomfort and unfamiliarity has God placed you? How could you follow God’s call to make yourself at home under these conditions?
One might have expected Jeremiah to advise the exiles to maintain their independence and be ready to return to Judah. Instead, he tells them to settle in, to build and plant, to seek the welfare of Babylon, even to pray for its prosperity. The judging purposes of God call for extended exile and not impa- tient rebellion. In the story of the ten lepers in Luke, one returns to praise and thank Jesus for giving him health. Only then do we learn that he is a Samaritan. The ultimate outsider becomes the model of faith. Second Timothy bears witness to the awe- some character of God that always honors divine commitments, thereby appearing to humans full of surprises. For the psalmist, God merits the worship of all the earth.
• Read Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7. When have you found yourself in exile? How did you cope with the situation? What reminded you that God had not abandoned you?
• Read Psalm 66:1-12. When has the testing of God brought you out to “a spacious place”?
• Read 2 Timothy 2:8-15. How do you ready yourself to pres- ent yourself as one approved by God?
• Read Luke 17:11-19. The writer states that Jesus’ question, “Where are the other nine?,” invites us to receive God’s healing of illness and inner wounds. What in your life needs God’s healing touch?
Respond by posting a prayer.
"Discovery Weekend changed me. I now have a better and stronger relationship with God because of it. Also, it has changed our church because people from all grades got closer together." (Discovery Weekend is an Upper Room spiritual formation experience for middle schoolers).
