. . . if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).

During the summer after fourth grade, I lived through a miserable week at camp. That wasn’t the camp’s fault, mind you. The camp was a church-related camp, and I was there with a church group. As I recall, there was no lack of campy things to do – the kinds of things a fourth-grade kid would have loved.

None of that mattered. For reasons that now escape me, I didn’t want to be there.

If I had to identify an experience of my life that could be called homesickness, that would be it. I wanted to be home. Nothing the camp offered was remotely interesting to me. The all-consuming focus of my mind that week was the knowledge that every day got me one day closer to going home. I lived for the Saturday morning parent pick-up. My sense of hope was rooted in an event that I could see on the calendar.

Homesick Exiles

Earlier this week we were thinking about the experience of exile. We defined exile as being dislocated, feeling out of place in a strange environment. Exile is being in a place you never wanted to be, a place you never thought you would be, a place you can’t wait to get out of. In the story of God’s people narrated in the Old Testament books of 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles, the exile was forced deportation to Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem in 587BC.   

In Psalm 137 we get a picture of how exile and homesickness are inseparable. “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion” (137:1). Exiles can’t help but yearn for home.

Getting home, however, is not the hope of those Judean exiles as they weep in Babylon. We know this from Jeremiah 29. The exiles were told to settle down in Babylon, build houses, raise families, make a life. Yes, the day would come when God would bring them back to Judah, but that day was a long way off.

If home is not the real hope of those in exile, what is? For that we look to a word of promise in 2 Chronicles 7:14. This word of hope was given long before the exile.

Prayer and Promise

When Solomon had completed the magnificent temple in Jerusalem and dedicated the structure to God, God spoke a word to Solomon. God promised that “my eyes and my heart will always be there” (7:16). Solomon’s task was to lead the people to live in covenant faithfulness with God. When the people ignored or broke the covenant, affliction and desolation would come to the land and to the people (7:13). Years later, the exile happened precisely because God’s people refused to live in covenant faithfulness with God.

But God had spoken this promise to Solomon: “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray . . . then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal their land” (7:14).

Hope is grounded in this truth: God hears the prayers of exiles.

The homesickness that often besets us in this life isn’t like a week at camp. There’s no date on the calendar, no clearly defined moment when we know we’ll get home and all shall be well. Our experiences of exile don’t necessarily uproot us from a dwelling place or a familiar setting. Our most painful experiences of dislocation are deeper than that.   

But whatever they are, and wherever we are, God is near. The prayers we speak by the rivers of Babylon, wherever that might be, will be heard. What is asked of us is that we humble ourselves and seek God’s face.

Where are the rivers of Babylon for you today? What kind of homesickness do you sense in your own soul? Find hope in this good news today: God hears the prayers of exiles. 

Prayer:

With our prayer, O God, we humble ourselves and turn to you, seeking your face. You alone are our reason for hope. Even in exile you are present, working all things for our good, taking note of our homesickness and our tears, hearing us when we call to you. Fill us with your Spirit, that we might live this day, wherever we are, in that hope. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.