DECEMBER 12

A New Thing

Isaiah 43:19

THOUGH I HAVE WALKED WITH God for several decades, I must confess I still find much about Him incomprehensible and mysterious. But this much I know: He delights in surprising us.

How important it is for us to remain sensitive and open! There are insights to be discovered which the Spirit of God quietly whispers. There are solutions to be applied, profound lessons to be learned, unexpected scenes to be enjoyed, surprising discoveries to be made. The hurried and irritable soul will miss them. Scripture is full of such individuals. Several come to mind:

• Aging Moses, after forty years of tending sheep, stopped to see why the bush refused to burn up (Exodus 3). The “serendipity” of an exodus was just around the corner, much to his surprise.
• Troubled Jacob, like many of us today, finally confessed, “The LORD is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it!” (Genesis 28:16). Result? A personal transformation.
• Legalistic Peter, determined not to eat anything “unclean,” had an enormous sheet of non-kosher creatures spread before him and was commanded by the Lord to “kill and eat” (Acts 11:5-8). That “serendipity” prepared him for a new ministry to reach the Gentiles.

Isaiah’s words make me smile every time I read them because I have seen the truth they represent come to pass time and again. God the Father, Son, and Spirit —the Godhead of heaven —still stand behind this promise:

I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.

ISAIAH 43:19

Your situation may be as hot and barren as a desert or as forlorn and meaningless as a wasteland. You may be tempted to think “There’s no way!” when someone suggests things could change. All I ask is that you read that verse one more time. Does God lie? Are you an exception? Since He’s been doing “a new thing” in places like drab deserts and wintry wastelands for centuries, I suggest you be on the ready.