Today in church we finished up a short series on the Tower of Babel. I learned a lot from the past couple of weeks on this topic, and I realized that Jesus said so much to me with this one small story.
One of the things that stuck out to me the most is the mere fact that the Lord scattered the people across the earth to continue on with the plan He set forth in Genesis 1:28. We are in some communities for only a season. We learn and grow and care for one another. But the Gospel needs to be spread and the time may come for Jesus to separate our paths. We can't get too comfortable in towns or neighborhoods or jobs because we have to keep in step with the call.
At Pentecost, the church was new and the believers gathered, prayed, and ate together daily (Acts 2:42-47). They lived together. They experienced the Holy Spirit inside of them for the first time together. They grew together and lives were changed as people continued to experience the Gospel and believe.
But this was all in preparation to send them out. We are meant to fill the earth with Jesus' name.
We grew here at UMW for four years. Living together. Praying and worshiping together. Crying and laughing together. Bringing others to Christ. But it's time for us to leave.
We wish we could all stay in this community forever because it's comfortable and good and full of love. Yet even with some of us trying to stay in Fredericksburg, we saw clearly that God had other plans for us. Some are moving across the country, some are moving out of the country, some are moving back home, and some are staying local. We might be in graduate school or working in ministry or going to work for a business or moving back home without much knowledge as to what the immediate future holds... so many different paths stemming from this one main road we had all been on for so long.
We have been equipped together in preparation for our individual trails. We have been refined together so that when next month comes we can fiercely proclaim the Gospel in whatever setting we find ourselves in.
Babel wasn't a curse. It was the Lord intervening to continue the plan of His people filling the earth. All of us being scattered across the world after graduation isn't a curse either: it's the fulfillment of His plan to send us out. It's the extension of this blessing that for a season entailed us being equipped together.
Not a curse, but a blessing.
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