Behold I am doing a new thing ~
Isaiah 43:19
Various renderings of our verse today indicate that God is “about” to do…, “will do” … ‘I am going to do’, all which indicate a future and a hope and yet the verse goes on to include the ‘now’ moment.
I think sometimes all of us get hung up in our personal methodologies. We set our faith upon the way we think something should be done and we are invested spirit, soul and body in seeing it accomplished and loose sight of the works that God is actually doing.
Of course we would all say we have taken the time to seek the counsel of the Lord and are building according to His plan, yet so often, we fall prey to the disappointments of failed experiences.
It’s a dicey thing when our plans go awry. We examine ourselves, we examine others, we question God and sometimes nothing is resolved. We are left to our own understanding and walking in the same paths simply because we are unable reconcile our realities. But the reality is always going to be the need to find ourselves daily, continually, aligning with the new that God is working. The dichotomy is our need for our faith to hold loosely to our methods and tightly to His ways.
Our faith can be so specifically exercised to an exact end that when it looks any other way we have a hard time seeing and understanding the workings of God. Isn’t that the way with much of life? We are so fixated on what we think is right, so assured of what we have set our faith to, when God doesn’t move the way we expect, in the time we have allotted him, we struggle over the will of God and then we fail to recognize the goodness of God in the midst of our struggle.
Romans reminds us of the condition of those who are unable to see the works of God and give Him thanks. Perhaps we could truly be those who would wake daily with the expectation of a new day with new things to behold and experience and rejoice in His creative processes.
We learn how, like wise master builders to bring forth out of our treasury that which is old and that which is new. We cannot allow ourselves to be so ridged in our understanding that it actually creates limitations and boundaries for our lives. The one who is the beginning and the end, the creator of all things, has a new thing each day He is endeavouring to work in each of us.
Morning by morning he awakens my hear to ear and I am taught, was Isaiah’s declaration, 50:4 I love this verse from a couple of translations which all speak to our willingness to hear.
The Sovereign Lord has given me a well instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed ~ NIV
The Sovereign Lord has given me his words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary. Morning my morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will ~ NLT
And finally the ESV which reads -
The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.
Berean bible adds ‘ to listen as a disciple’. On a side note we must pay head to the disciplined tongue which comes with the hearing ear. Much of the time it is our unrestrained tongue that actually wearies our own soul.
Behold I am doing a new thing, now it springs forth is a reality we all need to hold fast to in these days. We have no sacred cows, we have no paths so firmly set that we are not prepared to move when He does. After all, it is His presence and His glory we are seeking as we give ourselves to the establishment of His Kingdom.