Seeking the Prosperity of the City

"Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." (Jeremiah 29:7)

I remember where I was the first time I really grabbed this verse. I was sitting in an attick office three two stories above Spring Garden Road in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I'm sure I had brushed over this verse at some point in my life on a cursory reading of the Bible, but this time I heard these words and those words meant something.

Fast forward more than a decade to last week. I was walking down St. Paul Street, here in St. Catharines and those eight words were screaming in my head: "Seek the peace and prosperity of the city..." As I was walking, I was reminded of the time when, as a teenager, St. Paul Street was a legitimate shopping destination. I remember when the decision was whether to shop at the Pen Centre or downtown, on St. Paul Street. And just 15-20 years later, I walk down that same street to see almost a third of the storefronts for sale or lease, with another third looking like their on the verge of closing.

"Seek the peace and prosperity of the city..."

As I walked, I prayed Jeremiah 29:7 over and over. In a previous post, I talked about seeing the city and last week, after writing that post, I saw St. Paul Street again for the first time. And it hurt, quite frankly. It didn't hurt because it looks run down. It hurt because I felt what God felt as He walks down St. Paul Street. He hurts because people who live and do business on and walk down St. Paul Street hurt.

As His Church, may we seek the peace and prosperity of this great city. It is so easy to see all the faults and the ugliness like St. Paul Street or . It is also easy to brush past it and focus on the greatness and beauty. But God asks us to do neither: He asks us to seek the peace and the prosperity of St. Catharines. Why? Because if St. Catharines prospers, we too will prosper.