A New Thing

“See, I am doing a new thing!” – Isaiah 43:19a (NIV)

“God is doing a new thing!” is a very popular refrain among Charismatic believers. We are always looking for a new move of God. And indeed our God loves to make all things new. I believe that even now he is saying to those who have ears to hear;

‘See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland’ – Isaiah 43:19 (NIV).

But there is a mistake we often make. When God says ‘See, I am doing a new thing’ our first reaction usually is to look for our circumstances to begin to change. And indeed they would – eventually. But I want you to understand that whenever God talks of doing a new thing for a person (or people), the first place he starts is inside that person. God always works from the inside out. To change our circumstances, he needs to change us. In some cases once we have changed, we are positioned to become his partners in changing our circumstances. And in other cases, once a new thing happens to us, it no longer matters if our circumstances don’t change, because we now engage them with new eyes.

Consider Gideon in Judges 6. A man who had longed for ‘new things’ for his ravaged country, Israel. Yet when the angel of the Lord appeared to him to announce that God was going to do a new thing, the first place God begins is not in changing the nation, but rather in changing Gideon.

God had to deal with Gideon’s fear of his family, as well as with the idolatry in his family, before he could work through this man in dealing with the disorder in Israel. God works from the inside out.

Today I believe God is speaking over many of you reading this, the words in
Isaiah 43:17-19 (NIV);

“Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland”

God wants to do a new thing around you but he will start by doing a new thing in you. Yield yourself to him and don’t hold back any part. Don’t dwell on your past or on your circumstances. But rather pay attention to the things he is pointing out in your life. And respond to him.