What New Thing is God Doing?

Stepping into a new year, many people envision new things ahead. In my own reflections on a new year, I sat with the word, “new”, more in an attempt to clarify my expectations for what form “new” things might take. More specifically, what new thing is God doing?

How many times do we cross over into a new year with nothing but “old” expectations?

Ready to begin a new chapter, we bring old attitudes and assumptions, essentially allowing our myopic vision to slap a new page in the same old story.

Running headlong into a new year armed with goals and expectations of wonderful new things ahead, I quickly lose steam because I have no clear direction. Even worse, I have no clear idea of what new thing God might be doing.

All I have is vivid memories of what went wrong the previous year, what prayers remain unanswered, and the weight of chronic suffering.

As I mused on my goals for the new year in my journal, I stumbled as I wrote the word “new”, and felt the Lord stop me with a question: “what does new mean?“

“What does new mean?” Well, I suppose new means “never used”, or “fresh”, or maybe “unfamiliar”. Seeing my dilemma, the Lord then gave me these verses to help me ponder what the word “new” means from His perspective.

“Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”

Isaiah 43:18-19

God gave me these verses almost 8 years ago, as a promise which remains yet unfulfilled. Each new year since then He has renewed the promise bringing it to the forefront of my mind in various ways in the last days of December.

But this year He seems to be emphasizing the words, “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing;” with particular emphasis on the word “new”.

In fact, when I looked up the definition of the word “new” in the Webster’s 1828 dictionary, it used the exact words in verse 18, “not of the former or of old”. It further added, “never before existing”.

God wanted me to view the new year in a way I had never viewed it before. Rather than rely on past experience of God or view this year through the lens of His actions in past years, He was asking me to anticipate Him doing something He had never done before, or at least something He has never done in my life.

Isaiah gave these verses to God’s people as a reminder of who He was and all He planned to do for them, yet because of their disobedience, they stood on the threshold of captivity. The strong language and metaphor were meant to comfort His people when hopelessness overtook them.

God was a God who did new things which no one ever saw, He was a God who opened a way in the wilderness and caused rivers to flow in the desert.

As many times as He chided His people to “remember” their disobedience and the many ways they had betrayed Him, now He spoke through Isaiah exhorting them to forget those things, because He would do something they never saw before.

I believe God desires to do a new thing, multiple new things in our lives, but we, like the Israelites, limit Him through unbelief and complacency.

How often do we head into a new year with the complacent attitude of “nothing ever changes”, just another chapter in the same old story. It becomes easier to have this attitude when you walk a long, lonely path of suffering or unanswered prayer.

Yes, my story is not the way I would desire, and I grow weary living it.

Or maybe life has lost its wonder, and boredom pushes you to maintain the status quo and live small.

We also fall into the posture of finding God predictable. We place Him in a box, and assume we know how He will respond or act in the new year based on all of our past experience with Him.

The problem with viewing the new year through the lens of the former years is the past pollutes the present.

Though I have reflected on these verses for the past almost 8 years, only recently did they start to make sense to me. Three things stand out to me, that I believe God wants us to hear for this new year.

Forget the former things and what happened in the past. Let go of your focus on failures and where you fell short, unanswered prayers, disappointments, unrelieved suffering and everything you feel is missing in your life. Let go of your expectations of God.

Embrace God’s promise to do a new thing. God will do something in your life you have never experienced, and He promises you will not miss it! But if you are still looking back and holding onto the past, you limit God’s power in your life.

Look for a miraculous way forward in your wilderness. What is more shocking than a clear path in wilderness chaos or rivers in a desert place? This does not mean God will remove your suffering, but He will transform it in a way you never imagined.

If like me, you have become weary trudging through year after new year of the same old trials, take a bold risk in this new year. Move forward without thinking about the way things have always been. (Philippians 3:13-14)

Step into the new year without your preconceptions of God and what He has or has not done in the past. Instead, choose to press forward fully trusting the God of new things, the God of the impossible, the God who does new things.

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