He is Doing a NEW Thing

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

I (like many of you, I’m guessing) had heard this verse from Isaiah many times before. It’s an encouraging image - God making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

Every time I heard this verse and pictured the promises it speaks about, I always pictured “the way” and the “streams” to be visible blessings - health, financial provision, the release of something tangible. But, it wasn’t until the Lord revealed something to me recently that I understood this verse in a whole new way.

He had been working on me around the subject of money for a long time - teaching me not only to not make an idol out of it, but not to be afraid of it either. It was a long, hard road thanks to a poverty mindset and issues that were ground-in to my brain since childhood. But, at the beginning of 2019, I had felt something shift.

I had declared that my word for 2019 was ‘FREEDOM’ and I was beginning to see evidence of that popping up in my life pretty much as soon as the new year began. But, it wasn’t until this one pivotal moment that I realized an entirely new definition of “streams in the wasteland.”

For months (actually, years), finances had been tight for me. It was part of the faith journey God had me on - to learn to depend on Him fully for all of my provision. I knew why it was happening… but, that didn’t make it any easier to walk out. So, I was used to feeling “strapped.” I was used to just barely getting by (although technically, I did always have enough). But, in the past, I had my own certain ways of trying to control the situation. Things like writing a check a couple days before payday that I knew wouldn’t clear right away, “jockeying” around the credit cards that were set up for automatic debits on my bills and using up any money that I had set aside for savings or to give away to those in need. They weren’t things that felt good at the time, but they managed to get me through the immediate situation.

Except, one by one, God had convicted me not to do them anymore. As He transformed me from the inside out, I suddenly just couldn’t write a check if the funds weren’t immediately there or log on to switch out a credit card, because suddenly it all just didn’t feel like it “fit” anymore. I also had a particularly memorable moment with the cash I keep in my car to hand out to the homeless (which He told me to do), where I went ahead and used it to buy something at the grocery store (telling myself it was okay because He hadn’t asked me to put that particular cash in there that day, I had done it “on my own”), only to have Him convict me before I even left the parking lot - “Once it’s in there, it does not belong to you anymore. Whether I tell you to put it in there or you do it on your own.”

I also had found myself transformed from someone who never had savings ever to someone who was slowly but surely starting to build up a small savings account. Also around the beginning of the year, the Holy Spirit had led me to start rounding off the amount that was in my checking account after a deposit had been made and I tithed on it. For instance, if I had $120 deposited, I tithed $15 and it left me with $105 - I would then move the $5 over to my savings and have an even $100. Most of the time it was very small amounts since I have only been receiving small payouts for freelance work and pet sits during this period, but the point was I was doing it. And even more so than that, I refused to touch it once it was in there.

I had never been like this before! All of the sudden, I was someone who not only had cash on hand in the car when a giving situation arose, but I refused to use it for anything else. Suddenly, I had savings that I also refused to dip into. And I wasn’t trying to control or finagle things anymore, even if I couldn’t see the way… I was just trusting God to provide.

And that’s when it hit me - I am the stream in the wasteland. The way He made in the wilderness is me.

The Lord didn’t just swoop in with a flood of money and fix the situation, He changed me within it. Everything around me still appeared the same on the surface - it still looked like a wasteland, a wilderness. But within it, I had changed. I had been transformed when I wasn’t even looking.

In fact, I realized that the Lord couldn’t just jump ahead to the part where He changes the situation because if He did that, I wouldn’t have been able to see the transformation in me (or at least not as easily). Things had to stay the same for a period of time because I had to see that I was different within them.

And friend, I want to tell you from first-hand experience, I dare to say that kind of “way” is even better than a situation fix. Because it shows you that your contentment is not based on any outside circumstance or situation. It shows you that no matter what, you’ll be alright. Because even when the situation itself looks the same, you have peace that comes from within.

I know the Lord wanted me to realize that He was doing a new thing. “Do you not perceive it?” The New Living Translation uses the wording, “See, I have already begun!” And I believe that’s what He wants to say to both you and me.

That even if the situation around us appears to be the same, it doesn’t mean that it is. The Lord is already at work on your behalf. He is doing a new thing.

Around the same time of this revelation, the Holy Spirit also started helping me to see the “new” in my regular daily routine by prompting me to “see” things that had always been there, but had never been apparent to me before. After four years of owning my car, I suddenly realized that I had defrosters on my side mirrors that I never noticed. And after forty-some years, I noticed that I prefer to brush my teeth with my left hand, even though I had never taken note of that before!

He also started having me walk the dogs on a different route around the neighborhood and take different roads when I ran errands or went to work. Just to get my brain onboard with the program of things being new and not like they’ve always been.

It’s a great way to shake up your mind and something I highly recommend you try to get it out of that rut. But, don’t stop there!

Speak new words over your life, ask the Holy Spirit to help you think new thoughts and affirm out loud that you perceive God is doing a new thing!

Break out of the old! Because the new is just around the corner.

Do you not perceive it? It has already begun!

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