2015-20.2 Red Run. Encouragement on the Way.
Wimbledon: a game of doubles
I am doing a new thing
Isaiah 43:18-19
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."
AFTER a period of considering political manifestos and wondering how much store can be set by them, this verse gives us a key tenet of God’s own manifesto which stands firm and enduring. Rather refreshing really!
This is a word we can work with now, next year and hand down to future generations. They might understand the immediate context differently, but the word will be current.
What is the new thing that God is doing? It depends where you look – and how hard you look, in other words, how perceptive you are. We need some spiritual insight here. To live life as one who is Spirit-filled is not an empty phrase. We ask God to keep on filling us His Holy Spirit and to “enlighten the eyes of our heart" and we find we are seeing things differently, and seeing what we didn’t see before.
We need this. often we just don’t see it. I am struck by just how many churches around are frankly dysfunctional. I am struck by how much in church life we are trying to replicate what worked before in a previous generation. Many of us despair at times and ask: “Why is this church thing so difficult? Surely that isn’t God’s intention?"
The short answer is that is is not His intention, but perhaps we are stuck in the mould of the “former things". If God is doing a new thing which we are determined to ignore, it’s probably not going to go easy. He might just be trying to get our atttention!
This is more common than we know. Human caution is such that we are always busy in ‘retaining’ mode. God is always at His work of renewing, which replaces what we try to retain. Without wishing to sound glib, He creates a new day every 24 hours. and there is new mercy and grace in each new day. The new day has many similarities with the old day, but it is new, and it needs to be welcomed as new. We have never lived this day before!
That applies to our walk with God. Today’s walk has many similarities with yesterday’s. But it is not the same. We want to hold onto yesterday’s blessings and forget yesterday’s trials and attacks. Our Father wants us to do pretty much the opposite: to trust Him for blessing, favour, deliverance and provision without, as accountants say, ‘carrying forward’ any of that profit from yesterday.
He wants us to remember yesterday’s difficulties and spiritual challenges and moments of unbelief and giving in to anxiety and fear and, like the excellent coach He is, review them in order to ‘raise our game’ with what comes at us today. Think tennis for a moment. He is not on a high seat hearing our grunts and watching our efforts, and calling ‘out’ from time to time. No, He is like having a much better better partner in a game of doubles, who makes us look good and continually shows us strokes and stances we can follow.
We’re always learning – that’s what disciples do. It’s what we need to do because God is always ahead of us, doing something new, and we will never catch Him up.
- “Forget the former things": let go, leave alone, move on.
- “A new thing… do you not perceive it?" Probably not at first. That’s normal. So ask: “Father God, fill me afresh with Your Holy Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. Enlighten the eyes of my heart to know you more, and see where I can join in what You are doing".