Isaiah 43:18-19
“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 wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
I love gardening, though growing veg is my thing. I’m not very good with flowers.
But a new thing has happened to our ‘flower garden’ this year, all because we had to chop down a large but diseased Eleagnus shrub last summer. I was sad to see it go as it inspired how we shaped the garden around it. Besides a couple of small plants in front of it, however, the ground beneath was sparse. Nothing but weeds would grow.
It looked like a raw scar earlier this year, a blotch of brown, but as spring turned into summer, the soil sprung up with all kinds of new growth. Some were plants I popped in at random, but many came up of their own accord having lain dormant until new conditions prevailed, giving them space, light and water not just to grow, but to flourish.
And that’s what’s inspired our August “Word for the Month”.
Some of us need to keep pressing on with what we need to do right now. Head down, focused, step by step moving forward. We can’t force God’s hand out of season.
Others of us, however, may be sensing a sparse brown wilderness blotch in the landscape of our lives. If that’s you, take time this month to pray into and over the ‘new thing’ that God is preparing to raise up.