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 43:18b-19
In the middle of something can be a hard place to be.
The best stories have some sort of conflict, danger or problem in the middle of the story that makes you want to keep going. When things are really looking bad, no one wants to put the book down or stop the movie right in the middle. It’s even worse, when you’re living the middle of the story of your own life or watching someone that you love struggling badly. In the middle, we can’t see how things could possibly work out. We may despair when there’s no happy ending in sight.
One Bible teacher put it this way: “Nothing paralyzes our lives like the attitude that things can never change. Outlook determines outcome. If we see only the problems, we will be defeated; but if we see the possibilities in the problems, we can have victory.”[1] When we’re right in the middle of the stories of our lives, we need a reminder that there are always possibilities in God. He says, “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 43:18b-19). God is always in the middle of our stories.
Are you stuck in the middle of a problem today that seems like it’s been going on forever? Or are you watching someone else careening toward what seems like certain disaster? Sometimes, in and of ourselves, we’re powerless. But hold on to this truth: God does new things. He makes deserts and wastelands spring to life. There are always possibilities with God.
[1] “ESV® Standard Lesson Commentary® 2017-2018.” Unit 2, Lesson 7. Standard Publishing, 2017.
