Goodness and Mercy Will Follow You… Today marks the end of our 40-day journey in, through, and hopefully out of exile. Thanks for walking with me over these weeks as I've sought to help you process the losses, betrayals, setbacks, and outright rebellion that landed you in exile.

The place you landed was far from anything that looked remotely familiar and you wondered if you'd ever find your way back.  Let me quote Richard Rohr one last time:

The soul has many secrets. They are only revealed to those who want them, and are never completely forced upon us. One of the best-kept secrets, and yet one hidden in plain sight, is that the way up is the way down. Or, if you prefer, the way down is the way up.

In Scripture, we see that the wrestling and wounding of Jacob are necessary for Jacob to become Israel (Genesis 32:26-32), and the death and resurrection of Jesus are necessary to create Christianity. The loss and renewal pattern is so constant and ubiquitous that it should hardly be called a secret at all.

Dancing With Loss

I hope you see by now that loss, or what I've been calling "exile," is not a misnomer...it's not an aberration that God uses to punish people he is upset with or just "bad luck." Loss comes to us all. It's a part of life that we need to learn how to recover from and even dance with it gracefully.

The Rhythm of Life and Death

When I lived on our farm, one of the many things I learned about farm life is that death is as much a part of the farm as was life. You think of a farm as a place with many living animals. But when you are there 24/7, you begin to realize that death happens all around you.

There is almost a rhythm of life and death. I'd imagine people who work in hospitals experience the same thing. A friend of mine, a doctor, related to me how one night he went from one room where a patient just breathed his last and into a room to deliver a baby.

We live in a sanitized world where we quickly remove pain, suffering, death, or anything that makes us feel uncomfortable. We have lost our ability to suffer, learn patience, grieve and then recover well. As a result we become shallow, self-absorbed people who get stuck in exile, having no idea how to return.

Goodness and Mercy Will Follow You

I'm confident that God not only provides a way to return from exile but longs to restore and prosper us.

King David, wrote Psalm 23 in the Bible, where he was convinced that "goodness and mercy" would "follow him all the days of his life" even though he walked through the valley of the shadow of death.

When my wife and I moved off of our farm, into town and back into ministry, I was surprised at how quickly the blessings of God came back into my life. That was in 1997, and they continue today.

One day I was reading through Psalm 31 where it says:

How great is your goodness that you have stored up for those who fear you, that you have given to those who trust you. You do this for all to see. Psalm 31:19

God Stores Up Goodness

I felt like God was speaking to me directly, saying:

Remy, you think you wasted seven years. You think the world passed you by and life will never be what you hoped. But all the time you were enduring hardship, I was storing up the goodness that you were missing. And now I'm bringing that goodness out of storage for you to enjoy.

I find it hard to believe that God would want any more for me than he wants for any of his children. I have to believe he has goodness stored up for you as well. He IS the God of resurrection.

My hope in writing for these 40 days, and my prayer for you now, is that you would experience the fullness of God's goodness to such an extent that it would overflow you and into the lives of others. After all, isn't that what God is working into all of us...a generous heart to reveal his goodness to others?

Thanks again for traveling with me. God bless you in your journey.

These forty days of devotionals are adapted from my two books, Out of Exile and Return from Exile. They are available on Amazon.com.

Go to the Home Page to discover all my books, blogs, and coaching options to help you be a better person and live a better life. When you subscribe to readingremy.com you will receive the first chapter to my book STUCK and a weekly blog post.

This post is reposted from a blog series I did in 2013-2014. I’ve updated and republished them for the 2023 season of Lent. You can find other posts in this series by search below for the number of the day you are looking for, e.g. “Day 40.”