Behold: God is Doing a New Thing

Behold: God Is Doing A New Thing
There's something powerful about standing at the threshold of a new year. The calendar has turned, and with it comes an invitation—not just to make resolutions, but to embrace a divine promise that echoes through the ages: "See, I am doing a new thing."
These words from Isaiah 43:18-19 aren't merely inspirational platitudes. They're a declaration of God's nature and His intentions for His people. The prophet Isaiah spoke these words to a nation facing exile, to people who felt their best days were behind them, to hearts drowning in regret and disappointment. Yet into that darkness, God spoke light: "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!"

The Trap of Yesterday
We all have a tendency to live in the rearview mirror. Sometimes we're haunted by our failures—the relationships that fell apart, the opportunities we missed, the words we wish we could take back. Other times, we're so enamored with past successes that we never move forward. We camp out in "remember when" and miss the "look what's coming."
But here's the challenge: God is not asking us to forget our history so we can ignore the lessons learned. He's asking us to release our grip on yesterday so we can reach for tomorrow. There's a difference between remembering and dwelling, between learning and being imprisoned.

The Israelites faced this very struggle. They remembered the glory days—the parting of the Red Sea, the manna from heaven, the visible presence of God. But now they sat in Babylon, far from home, with no temple, no visible manifestation of God's power, and no apparent hope. Their circumstances screamed that their story was over.

How many of us live in that same tension? We know what God did back then, but we struggle to believe He'll do it again. We've seen His faithfulness in the past, yet we doubt His provision for the future.

The Power of "I Will"
Here's a transformative truth: developing an "I will" spirit changes everything. Not "they will" or "we will" or "y'all will"—but "I will." This is personal. This is intentional. This is the difference between spectating and participating in your own transformation.

"I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth." These aren't just beautiful words from Psalm 34. They're a declaration of personal responsibility for our spiritual posture. We cannot control our circumstances, but we can control our response to them.

Think about it: How much time do we spend rehearsing problems we cannot reverse? We wake up and immediately begin the mental inventory of everything that's wrong, everything that hurts, everything that's missing. We become experts at our own misery, PhD candidates in the school of complaint.

But what if we shifted our focus? What if instead of being problem-solvers, we became God-seekers? What if we stopped defending ourselves against every criticism and started asking, "Is there truth here that could make me better?"

The Desert Promise
One of the most striking images in Isaiah's prophecy is this: "I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." The King James Version says it even more dramatically: "rivers in the desert."

If you're stranded in a desert, what do you need most? Water, certainly. Shade, absolutely. But here's the deeper truth: you need the One who provides both. You need the presence of God more than you need the presents from God.

We get this confused. We pray for the breakthrough, the financial miracle, the relationship restored, the job offer, the healing. And God cares about all those things. But He's offering something far greater—His presence, His Spirit, His transforming power in our lives.
Rivers in the desert aren't just about hydration. They represent life where there should be death, hope where there should be despair, possibility where there should be impossibility. They represent the supernatural intervention of a God who specializes in making ways out of no way.

Getting Better
So how do we actually embrace this new thing God wants to do? The answer is beautifully simple and profoundly challenging: just get better.

Stop waiting for perfect conditions. Stop making excuses. Stop blaming your past, your circumstances, or other people. You know what better looks like in your life. You know the areas where you're settling, where you're lazy, where you're making choices that don't align with who God has called you to be.

Getting better means being honest about where we are. Some of us have rough edges. Some of us know we could do more, pray more, serve more, love more—we just don't want to. That's not judgment; that's reality. And reality is where transformation begins.
The beautiful truth is that God doesn't need favorable conditions to work miracles. He made the Israelites' wilderness journey a testimony to His faithfulness. He turned their desert experience into a river of blessing. He brought them out of captivity not because they deserved it, but because He is faithful.

Living With Eyes Open
The difference between stumbling and walking purposefully is simple: open your eyes. When we close our eyes, we cannot see where we're going. We stumble in darkness, uncertain and afraid. But when we lift our eyes, when we focus on the God who holds our future, everything changes.

This year doesn't have to be a repeat of last year. Your past doesn't have to define your future. The mistakes you made, the opportunities you missed, the disappointments you endured—they're all part of your story, but they're not the end of your story.

God is doing a new thing. It's springing up even now. The question isn't whether God is faithful or capable. The question is: Do you perceive it? Are you watching for it? Are you positioning yourself to receive it?

Develop an "I will" spirit. Release what you cannot change. Rise above the problems that try to define you. Reset your mind and run your own race. Focus on the Provider, not just the provision. Believe that the same God who brought you through yesterday is more than able to carry you into tomorrow.

The new thing God wants to do in your life is waiting. Don't miss it by staring at yesterday. Look up. Look forward. And watch what God will do.