Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
Isaiah 43: 18-19a
God is doing a new thing! Can you see it? Can you imagine it?
Calling to mind the people of Israel’s journey through the wilderness, do you remember how they had no home and wandered for years? Can you imagine how their time may have felt like a desert wasteland where nothing grew? What is before you isn’t always what you think. You may see a wilderness. You may see a desert. God says--I made a way through the sea. Imagine what I can do.
Of course as you and I move through season after season, we carry with us the weight and expectation of what was. Each of us has memory that shapes each step we take.
Memory can and is a blessing. When you touch a hot stove and get burned, you know that the next time you touch a hot stove the same thing is likely to happen. Experiences like this help us to anticipate what can come next.
When God says--I am doing a new thing here and I don’t want you to remember the past--God is saying that there is nothing in your experience up to this point that is going to help you understand what you are going to see. There is nothing that has happened in your life that is going to prepare you for what you will encounter. There is nothing worth remembering because, God says, I am doing something completely different.
Is your anxiety up? I know that when I have been asked to venture into the unknown without clear direction, it is scary. I like being about to rest on what I know and understand. I appreciate having a map. I do better when I can follow step by step.
When God reminds the people of Israel of what God has done in the past, how God brought them out of Egypt and destroyed Pharaoh's army and how God gave them a home after wandering in the wilderness God is saying you have been in this place before and I protected you. I gave you a hope and a future.
Looking forward, just because we see nothing or nothing but sand for miles and miles, God is going to call us forward into a future shaped for us by the power and wonder of God.
It is a hard place to be. When you can’t rely on the past and you can’t imagine the future and all you can really do is trust, it’s hard. You can’t see faith in God.
Look at Noah. God told him to build an ark. He did. His neighbors laughed at him. It made no sense but God saved a people.
Look at David. God told Samuel to go and anoint one of Jesse’s sons king. Jesse brought each of his sons and each was rejected by God until the youngest showed up. God judges people differently than you and I do. It made no sense but God put David on the throne of Israel.
Look at Joshua. God told Joshua to gather the army and march around Jericho for six days. On the seventh day they blew the trumpets and the walls fell down. What army today would devise such a strategy? It made no sense but God won a battle.
God is always in the business of doing a new thing. God is always in the business of building the kingdom in ways that make no sense.
As we return to our buildings, how might God be calling us to set aside the former things in order to do a new thing in this place? Are there projects to take up? Are there programs or people we may be called to partner with? Some of these things may not make sense but God can and does use nonsense to call and gather the church.
Stepping out in faith and hope, can we dream together about where God may be calling us into the unknown wilderness? I believe there are rivers ahead of us that right now we can only imagine. How can we open ourselves to the future that God is preparing us for? God is doing a new thing! What wonders will we see? Enjoy a blessed June! Pastor Kristin
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