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Thursday, November 8th (Day Twenty-Five)

Read:
Jeremiah 29:4-7

"...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."

Reflect:
Houston is a city that is easy to use. It offers opportunity and experience. It offers several years of really hard work that can be rewarded with moving to another place and slowing down. The two questions many people ask themselves upon moving to Houston are, first, what can this place offer me, and second, how soon can I leave once I have taken everything I need.

Contrast this with God's instructions to his people. They were not moving from their homes to a sunny retirement spot in Southern California. They were being taken against their wills to a desolate land far away from the land God had promised their forefathers to give them. If anyone had a reason to hate a place, it was the exiled Israelites. Yet God told them not to hate the land of their exile, but to love it and pursue its welfare.

Likewise God does not call us to "use" Houston. He calls us to love it. He calls us to enter in to its beauty and its ugliness and to promote peace, justice and welfare within it. That is why Christ the King Presbyterian Church exists in Houston, and that is why we are working and praying toward the Lord granting us a permanent facility on Silber Road.

Apply:

1. What is your disposition toward Houston? Even if you landed here against your will, how does this passage encourage you in your relationship to the city?
2. In what ways can you promote the welfare of Houston? How can God use a permanent facility to this end?

Pray:

1. Confess any ways you have attempted to "use" Houston for your own ends, and ask the Lord to help you seek the welfare of your city.
2. Pray that the Lord will use Christ the King to promote the welfare of Houston and those who live in it.