“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. 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 ‭43‬:‭18‬-‭19‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The mind plays tricks on us. 

During conscious hours we can focus on what must be accomplished and push away what we must ignore. After the toils of the day we are finally allowed blessed rest – mental, physical, spiritual… and that is when our thoughts can “get us.”

Very frequently in the wee hours of the predawn, when all is silent and still, this happens to me. Like today. While huddling over my steaming cup in the predawn, candle lit hours – my ghosts of broken past came out to haunt. I wasn’t trying to open that skeletal closet. It just happened. And I sat in the quiet and almost, almost let it happen – Relive, Rehash. Review. And restart – the angst and pain from past traumas. Maybe a bit of PTSD lives in all of us over the big hurts in our personal histories. 

But God. 

Just as I was wont to head down the rabbit hole of painful history – I felt a nudge. “Come to me first…”

And so I did. I opened up my Bible (app) and the scripture above popped up. Now the coincidence of that passage in Isaiah means nothing unless one understands my particular economy… you see the years I lived when the “locusts” where eating my life apart – were not that long ago – and in the midst of that time, it is this scripture that God sent me over and over and over. 

I would hear it in a sermon. It would be featured in a Bible study. A friend would send it to me, it would be heard in a song. And almost every day – the Spirit would whisper it to me. God is that good. 

So here I am -several years forward and I hear the whispers again. And I remember the lesson. We cannot control the hurts and disappointments others cause in our lives. They can be crushing. And they can be mighty. 

But. It is ours to choose how much weight we give to those actions. It is ours to choose whether we want to live in the past pain and re-victimize ourselves repeatedly. And it is ours to choose if we want to give our personal power over to that pain, that person or that event. 

As I sit here finishing up this writing, the sky is transforming from a cold black to a soft warm pinkish gray. And like the scripture. I am witness to God moving in the dawn to do a “new thing” in this moment. 

And the lesson reminder is this, When life seems darkest. When the days in the “desert” won’t release you – remember God’s available promise. There may be tears in the night but come morning… look for the new thing He is doing in your life. Seek it. Trust it. And mostly. Just don’t miss it. 

God will and has provided streams in the desert to refresh, restore, renew and redeem our pain. 

And that is a new thing worth waiting for.

Amen and Amen.