E26 | When God Doesn't Change the Season | I Never Got My Why - Part 4

In Part 4 of the I Never Got My Why series, Tennille explores the true context behind Jeremiah 29:11 and why God's promise of hope and a future was first spoken to people living in exile.

What happens when God doesn't change the season?

Through the story of Israel in Babylon, this episode explores how to stop putting your life on hold while waiting for the next chapter and how to build, grow, and flourish in a place you never planned to stay.

Inside this episode:

• The real context of Jeremiah 29:11
• Why God's promise did not remove the exile
• How to stop living emotionally packed for departure
• The difference between surviving a season and growing inside it
• What God may be building in your waiting season

If you've ever felt stuck, delayed, disappointed, or tempted to believe your real life starts later, this episode is for you.

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

what if the season you are trying to escape is the very place God is trying to grow you? Not forever, but long enough to become someone different inside it. There is a verse people quote all the time about hope and a future, but most people don't realize it was spoken to people living in exile. People grieving the life they thought they were going to have. And I think once you understand that, the verse changes completely I want to read you the verse, not from memory, the way you would read it off of a wall hanging in someone's living room. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." It's beautiful and so true, and taken almost entirely out of context by almost everyone who has ever quoted it. Here is what was happening when God said it. The people of Israel were in Babylon. They hadn't chosen to be there. They had been taken. Their city had been destroyed. Their temple, the place where they met with God, had been torn down. Their king had been captured. Their way of life had been dismantled piece by piece, and they had been carried into a foreign land by people who didn't worship their God and didn't care about their pain. And they were waiting to go home. They wanted to go home more than anything, more than they had ever wanted anything. And there were prophets among them, false ones, telling them exactly what they wanted to hear. "This will be over be soon. Two years, maybe less. Hold on. God is about to move. Deliverance is coming soon." And into that moment, God sent a letter through Jeremiah, and the letter didn't say what they were hoping to hear. So if you start at verse four, it says, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Sent. God used the word sent. He wasn't surprised by their exile. He wasn't scrambling to fix a situation that had gotten out of control. He acknowledged directly that He had sent them into the very season they were suffering through. And then he gave them instructions. Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat the produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters. Take wives also for your sons and give your daughters into marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply here and do not decrease. And then verse seven, "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. Pray for the city that took you captive Settle into the place that is not your home. Build something where you didn't choose to be. Put down roots in the hard season because this is gonna take longer than you want it to. Verse ten. When seventy years are completed by Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. Seventy years. Not two, not soon, not any moment now. Seventy years. And verse eleven comes after all of that. For I know the plans I have for you. This promise was not spoken to people on their way up. It was not spoken at a graduation. It was not spoken at a wedding. It was not spoken during a breakthrough session. It was spoken to people in exile. People who had been told to stop waiting for a quick escape and start building a life the hard season. The promise doesn't cancel the exile. The promise speaks inside it So I wanna talk about what changes when you read the verse that way. Because for a long time, I used Jeremiah 29:11 The way people use pain medication. Something to get through the moment, something to hold against the ache until the ache went away. A promise I claimed without sitting in the full weight of what surrounded it. Then one day, I read the verses around it. Build houses, plant gardens, pray for the city. And something in me went very quiet because what God was saying to the exiles was not, "I'm going to rescue you so fast, you won't have time to get comfortable." He was saying, "I need you to get comfortable. I need you to stop holding your breath, waiting for the season to end. I need you to build something right where you are standing." If I am telling the truth, that's not what I wanted to hear. And at this moment, it's something I still don't wanna hear. Because there were seasons where I was convinced the next thing was going to be the thing. The next opportunity, the next open door, the next chapter, the next answer, the next breakthrough, all the next. And I lived emotionally one step ahead of my actual life. I was constantly, constantly looking over the horizon for what God was going to do next. Meanwhile, there were people to love in the season I was already in. Things to learn, ways to grow, places God was trying to meet me that I kept overlooking because I was so focused on leaving, so focused on getting out of that hard situation within that moment. And I thought faith looked like looking ahead. Sometimes faith looks like paying attention. Sometimes faith looks like planting a garden in a place you never plan to stay. I think about the ways I didn't build anything during my own exile seasons. I didn't plant anything because I didn't think I was going to be there long enough to eat the harvest. I didn't invest in the community around me the way I could have because mentally I was already somewhere else. I was somewhere better. I was somewhere past the question, somewhere in the future. I was waiting for God to move me before I would commit to the place He had put me. I think about the seasons where I believe my real life was waiting somewhere else. The degree, the opportunity, the relationship, the position I thought was already mine, the thing I had worked for and prayed for and prepared for. And when it went differently than I expected, I spent so much time emotionally waiting to leave that season that I almost missed what God was trying to grow inside me while I was still there. I was physically present, but emotionally, I had already packed my bags. I booked a ticket. I was ready to go. And when you live that way long enough, you stop fully participating in the life God has placed in front of you. You become a visitor in your own story, always waiting, always scanning the horizon, always believing the real chapter starts later. And sometimes, later becomes years. And the invitation He was extending the whole time was there. Flourish here. Thrive here. Grow here. Not because here is the destination, but because the person you are becoming in here is the person who will be ready for what comes next This is a phrase I want you to sit with. The promise doesn't cancel the exile. The promise speaks inside it. And maybe that is why this verse started healing me differently once I stopped reading it like an escape plan. Because suddenly God was no longer asking me to survive the season until He removed me from it. He was asking me to become someone inside it. Jeremiah twenty-nine eleven was not a promise that the pain would end quickly. It was a promise that God had not lost the plot of the story. That while they were building houses in Babylon, He already knew what chapter 70 looked like. He already had the full arc of the story in his hands, and he was asking them to trust the author while they were still stuck in a chapter they didn't choose. That is what this verse is doing. That is what it was always doing. It is not a promise that your exile will be short. It's a promise that your exile is not the end of the story. There is a difference, and the difference is everything I wanna ask you something about the season you're in right now. What would it look like to build something here? Not to give up on what you are waiting for. Not to decide the season is permanent, but to stop holding your breath and start planting something in the soil of it right now. What would it mean to pray for the welfare of the place God has you in, even if you didn't choose to be here? What would it mean to build a life inside the waiting instead of putting your life on pause until the waiting is over? I'm not asking you to be grateful for the exile. Gratitude and obedience are not the same thing. The Israelites were not told to be glad about Babylon. They were told to thrive inside it There is a space to grieve what you lost and still water the garden at the same time. Maybe it looks like showing up to work faithfully while your heart is still healing. Maybe it looks like serving Creating, studying scripture, building community, starting therapy, launching the thing, journaling, resting, laughing again. Not because the exile stopped hurting, but because your life deserves to keep growing even while you are waiting. before you leave this episode, I want you to ask yourself one question What have I stopped building because I thought the season was temporary? Write it down. Don't overthink it. Maybe it's a friendship. Maybe it's your relationship with God. Maybe it's your health, a dream, a community. Maybe it's just simply joy. Then ask, What is the one seed I can plant this week? Not next year, not when life makes sense or when life is easier, not when it feels good, but this week, because gardens don't appear when the exile ends. They grow while you're still living in it That's a whole posture shift, and I know it's not a small ask, But I think that's part of how we move from the why and we start moving into the for what of our season and when that starts to arrive, not by escaping the hard chapter. And trust that there are plenty of, plenty of times that I wanted to escape the hard chapter. I wanted to fast forward. I wanted to flip the pages to that part of the story where this is over and I'm out of the exile and I'm out of this hurt and this pain and this waiting But It doesn't work that way. Who are you becoming inside of this? And when I look back, some of the things I thank God for most were grown in seasons I spent years trying to leave. at the time, I thought He was delaying my story. What He was actually doing was developing me for it. We'll be talking about the for what as we move through this series. But for now, I want you to sit with the promise the way it was originally given, not as a bandage, but as a covenant, a promise that God has made to us. From a God who knows the full seventy years of your story while you are still living inside year three So everything we've talked about in these four episodes, the question, the room, the women who came before you, and now the promise inside the exile, all of it lives inside the reflection guide, the I Never Got My Why reflection guide. It's a companion to this series, and it's free. If you have not downloaded it yet, the link is in the show notes. And if this series is helping you make sense of a season you never wanted, I want to personally invite you to something that's beginning next week. on Wednesday, June seventeenth, we begin a free online Bible study called Why Did This Happen? Together, we're going to open Scripture and walk through the stories of women who asked hard questions, wrestled with disappointment, and discovered that God was still writing their story. This is not a lecture. It's not a place where anyone is going to rush you to a happy ending. It is a conversation around the word with women who understand what it feels like to be in a why season. If that sounds like where you are right now, I would love to have you join us. Registration is free, and the link is in the show notes. And one more thing. In July, I will be hosting a live workshop for the woman who is ready to take this from her headphones into her actual life. More details about that coming soon. But if you have been listening and thinking, I know God is inviting me into deeper healing, I want you to know something is being built with you in mind. I will be back Tuesday and I'm going to tell you something that nobody talks about enough. What it actually feels like when your mind knows the truth and your heart absolutely refuses to catch up. So come back. and join me for the next podcast episode. And if there's someone that you feel should join you in this series, feel free to share it. And as always, I want you to know that you are seen even here, even now, even in the why