"Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." Isaiah 43:19
The other day I had my first pumpkin iced coffee, and then had a couple more later in the week. We’ve been trying to soak up as many pool days as possible, knowing that summer is quickly fading and fall is right around the corner. I love that we live in a place that has four seasons, this was a weird requirement I had when Jackson and I decided to move. I wanted to live somewhere with seasons.
I love the natural order of the world and the way God has set it up to change with the seasons, and I also love how reflective the seasons are of the way God moves and makes changes in our lives. In the same way I’m noticing how the sun is starting to set earlier, the mornings are a little less humid, and pumpkin flavored everything is suddenly on the menu, I am starting to sense that God is bringing a new season in my life too. I bet you’ve had that feeling before.
In one particular season change in my life, I was so focused on what had happened in the past, that I had fixated on it and refused to look forward. It wasn’t an intentional thing, I was just really missing what was, and I wanted to keep looking for what was in the future. I was hoping that history would repeat itself because what I had in that previous season was something I was so grateful for, I kept hoping it would happen again. The Lord shook me out of my fixated ways with this simple but powerful verse, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19
I felt the Lord whisper those words to my own spirit, I’m doing a new thing, do you not perceive it?
I was focused on looking backward at what I loved about the last season, and I was hopeful and prayerful I would get the same thing. But God is doing a new thing. It’s not the same as the last thing. It’s new. It’s fresh. It’s better.
And He’s asking us to perceive it, He’s asking us to pay attention and shaking us awake from our sleepy, long summer days like the leaves will be shaking off the trees in the wind this fall.
I think God knows there is this nature in us to want to look backward, and to focus on what was and not move forward. But He says we can’t put new wine into an old wineskin. He calls us new creations and says the old has passed away and the new has come.
He’s a God of restoration and revival, but it’s not the same as it was before. We can even see this in the person of Jesus, when He died and rose again, there were some clear differences between His old body and new body. One article says that Jesus’ new body had some abilities that the previous one either didn’t have, or it didn’t demonstrate. I think God wants to wake up those parts of us that we maybe weren’t demonstrating, or using before. He wants to do a new thing.
Can I just gently declare over you through your inbox this morning that I think God wants to do a new thing in you this week?
I think God is telling us He is doing a new thing, and asking us if we can see it. He’s inviting us into the vision of what is next, the new season, the new thing, but He’s needing us to turn away from the old thing, to move forward with Him,
knowing He’s the same God in the old seasons we’ve loved and delighted in, and He wants us to be equally invested in the new thing.
Let’s all say yes and amen to the new thing, and choose to perceive it.
Journaling Prompts:
-Have you felt God stirring you to think about a new, fresh season he might be bringing you into?
-Ask the Holy Spirit to give you vision for the new thing God might want to do in and through you, and write it down.
-Is there something that you need to let go of (literally or figuratively) and what would it look like to take a step toward the “new thing” today?
Prayer:
Hey Father, thank you for being a God of the seasons. Thanks for being with us in all of the seasons, all the highs and lows and every in between moment. Help us to focus on you and what you are doing in and through us, even when it doesn’t look or feel familiar. Help us to eagerly invite the new thing into our lives, and to welcome the change you bring as it comes. Amen.
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