Lent Reading: Isaiah 43:16-21 

Israel was in exile in Babylon. Captives because of their unfaithfulness to God. It is to the captive Israelites the prophet Isaiah reminds them of another time they were slaves. The time was a nearly thousand years earlier, in Egypt, when God “made a way through the sea” and defeated the army of Pharoah. From Egypt God rescued his people by an exodus to their promised land. Would God rescue Israel from Babylon, like he did back then? 

God says,  

“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?” (Isaiah 43:18-19) 

God intends to rescue Israel again, but not like Egypt. Then he made a way through the sea. Now God will make ‘a way in the wilderness’. God is the same God, but he is not predictable. What was right in Egypt, is not right for Babylon. 

Our memory can limit our capacity to see what God can do. We imagine the future will be a repeat of the past. Often more of the same, but hopefully better. The trouble is where we are now is not where we were before. We are in a new place and God is up to something new.  

When Jesus came as God’s ‘way in the wilderness’, the religious and political elites were stuck on the ‘former things’. They would not see God was doing a new thing through Jesus.  

What are our ‘former things’? Is it our old patterns of thinking, our former expectations, our lifestyle, our ingrained habits. What is holding us back from the future newness God has for us? “Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” 

In Him, 

Jason 

Photo by Kalen Emsley on Unsplash