Scripture
Jeremiah 21:9 – “Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine or plague. But whoever goes out and surrenders to the Babylonians who are besieging you will live; they will escape with their lives.”
Jeremiah 24:5 – “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians.’”
Observation
Jerusalem’s walls felt safe. The Babylonians outside them were the embodiment of fear — destroyers, defilers, enemies of God’s temple. Yet through Jeremiah, God issues an unsettling command: Walk toward them. Lay down your pride, open yourself to the unknown, and step straight into the hands of those you dread.
This is not mere tactical surrender; it is holy vulnerability. It’s releasing control when everything in us screams to hold on. And in that very place, God says: I will preserve you. I call you good. I see this as life.
Application
It’s hard enough to be vulnerable with people we love — harder still to entrust ourselves to a path that feels unsafe. Yet sometimes God’s way of confronting fear is not escape, but passage through. Like Judah, I often want to fortify my walls, resist what I don’t understand, and cling to the familiar. But God may lead me into the very place I resist — not to harm me, but to redeem me. What looks like defeat may be the doorway to life.
So I ask:
– Where am I facing a “Babylon” I want to run from?
– How might God be inviting me to step toward it in trust?
– Can I believe that His presence will meet me inside the fear, not just on the other side of it?
Today, I choose one fear not to avoid, but to hand into His keeping, walking toward it with His promise under my feet.
Prayer
Lord, You know the places I resist — the fears I circle around but dare not enter. Give me faith to follow You into them, believing You preserve those who trust You more than their own defenses. Strip away my pride, my need to control, and my false security, until my life rests fully in Your hands. Let me be like the good figs — fruitful even in foreign soil — because I am planted in You. Amen.
