God’s Mercy in Divine Disruptions

Jeremiah 24:5–7 - “Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah… I will set my eyes on them for good… I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord.”

There are moments in life when our categories begin to break down.

There are seasons where life doesn’t hold together the way it once did. What felt stable begins to shift. What made sense no longer does. A diagnosis comes out of nowhere. A job disappears. News lands that changes everything. A parent begins to fade. A child enters a season you don’t quite understand. And you find yourself trying to make sense of what God might be doing in the middle of it.

And almost instinctively, we begin to interpret.

If things are going well, we assume God is pleased. If things are difficult, we begin to wonder what has gone wrong.

But Jeremiah 24 does not allow us to read our lives that simply.

In this passage, God draws a line that runs directly against our instincts. The people taken into exile—those who have lost their homes, their rhythms, their sense of normal—are called “good figs.” The ones who remain in Jerusalem—those who retain stability, continuity, and the appearance of blessing—are called “bad figs.”

That reversal forces a deeper question.

What if circumstances are not the clearest indicator of God’s favor?

What if something else is?

Listen carefully to how God speaks of the exiles:

“I will set my eyes on them for good… I will give them a heart to know me.”

The good God intends is not first the restoration of their situation. It is the transformation of their heart.

This is where the text begins to press more deeply into our lives. Because it suggests that God’s primary aim is not comfort, but formation. Not the preservation of our preferred circumstances, but the shaping of who we are becoming.

And if that is true, then disruption begins to take on a different meaning.

Not random. Not careless. Not evidence of absence.

But purposeful.

Throughout Scripture, this pattern repeats itself.

Joseph is betrayed and sold, only to find that what was meant for harm becomes the means of preservation. Israel is led into the wilderness, not to be abandoned, but to be formed. And at the center of it all, the cross—where what appears to be defeat becomes the very means of redemption.

Again and again, God does His deepest work through circumstances we would never choose.

Not because He delights in pain, but because He is committed to something deeper than ease. He is committed to wholeness.

Disruption, then, becomes a tool in His hands. It loosens our grip on what we thought we needed. It exposes where our trust has been misplaced. It brings into view what has been quietly shaping us beneath the surface.

At the same time, Jeremiah offers a quiet warning.

Because the people who remained in Jerusalem were not without signs of spiritual life. They still had the temple. They still maintained their rhythms. From the outside, very little appeared to have changed.

And yet, they were drifting.

It is possible to be surrounded by the symbols of God and still be far from the presence of God. Stability, when it is no longer rooted in dependence, can become dangerous. It can dull spiritual hunger. It can reinforce the illusion that we are in control. It can allow deeper drift to go unnoticed.

Which means that what we often interpret as blessing may, at times, be concealment.

All of this begins to shift the question we ask in different seasons.

Instead of asking, “Why is this happening?” or “What did I do wrong?” the more faithful question becomes:

“What is God forming in me through this?”

That question does not deny the pain. It does not minimize the disruption. But it refuses to interpret it as meaningless.

Because beneath it, there is a steady confidence—God is not absent in disruption. He is often most active there.

If you find yourself in a season that feels uncertain, unsettled, or difficult to understand, it may be worth considering that what feels like loss may not be loss in the way you think. It may be the beginning of something deeper. A reordering. A reorientation. A return to dependence.

God says of the exiles, “I will build them… I will plant them… I will give them a heart to know me.”

That is not distance. That is pursuit.

And it leads to a truth that is both unsettling and deeply hopeful at the same time:

God will sometimes disrupt your life to give you back your life.

Not the version built on control, performance, or stability—but the one rooted in communion, clarity, and trust.

Prayer

Lord, help me to trust You in the seasons I would not choose. Where my life feels disrupted, give me eyes to see what You are forming beneath the surface. And lead me into a deeper knowledge of You—one that is not dependent on my circumstances, but grounded in Your faithful presence.