The Start Of Something New

http://www.jonacuff.com/stuffchristianslike/2011/06/the-past/

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 wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

 “Forget the former things;”

That’s a command, not a “maybe you should think about doing this.” And it doesn’t say, “Learn from them, wrestle with them, figure out a valuable lesson you can take from them.” It says “forget” them.

“…do not dwell on the past.”

God knows what we’ll be tempted to do. In this case, it’s obvious: We’re going to struggle with dwelling on the past. With making our home in the past, with defining ourselves by our past. God knows we’ll struggle with that and pleads, “Do not dwell on the past.”

“See, I am doing a new thing!”

Don’t you want to hug the Bible when it ends a sentence with an exclamation? This is not something casual or ordinary. This is a new thing! Hope is loud and bright and colourful!

“Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

In this we’re told God’s ability to spring it up and change our lives will not be dependent on our ability to perceive it. There are so many days where I don’t see or feel the new thing he is doing in my life, but that matters not. He is doing it nonetheless, regardless if I do not perceive it.

“I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

I don’t care how wild your past was. I don’t care about how wasted the wasteland of your life was. Those are the very places God loves to redeem. Those are the very places he puts a way through. Those are the very places he puts a stream.

Sometimes, my past feels big and inescapable. It looms large in my head and my heart, a tattoo that will not fade, a defining moment that cannot be forgotten. But the truth is, the past is not my home. God is doing a new thing. In me, in you, in us. The old has gone, the new has come, I am a new creation!