Scripture

“Forget all that – it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new.”

Observation

The Lord will send an army against Babylon, for the sake of his people. He is the Lord who brought his people through the water to escape from Egypt.

He is going to do something new. He will make a pathway through the desert. He will create rivers in the wasteland. The wild animals will thank the Lord for giving them water.

The Lord made Israel for himself, and they will honour him before the whole world.

Application

God is the God of the new thing.

He does not abandon the old thing, but he makes a new thing out of old things, and sometimes out of nothing.

It is good to celebrate what God has done in the past, but we should not cling to these when God shows us there is a new thing to be done.

Isaiah speaks of a road in the wilderness and a river in the desert. This was the way home for Israel from the exile.

Sometimes it can feel like we are stuck in a bad place – perhaps sins that we cannot shake or hurting situations that we cannot change.

In those places, we can always look to the Lord and trust him to provide the new things, the new road in the desert. We could never have worked it out by ourselves, it is all the work of God.

The key is to keep our eyes on the Lord and be open to His new thing.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, nobody would have expected the new thing you did by dying on the cross. Thank you that you are not bound by our limited ways of thinking. Amen.