Perspectives: Considering the Former and Embracing the New

In all our lives seasons come and go. Some are joyful transitions. Some are movements not of our own choosing. All are change. The thing of dread to more people than you would think.

I tend to embrace change. I like new things, going to new restaurants and trying new tastes and experiencing the unexpected. But sometimes my running to embrace the new leaves people I care deeply for in the wake. Not all of us like the novelty. Not all of us can drop what we adore for something new. This is hard to remember at times.

I am in a season of change right now. Not one of choice, but one of necessity. The siren call of the familiar is a temptation, but the call of something higher and better is louder and clearer. But that higher and clearer call is not something everyone can hear. It would make everything so much easier. What is confirmation in my soul is confusion or delusion to someone else. It is so hard not to judge someone else's confirmation from the Holy Spirit. One's own whispering voice can be so clear, but impossible for others to even comprehend.

One of the best sermons I ever gave was from a passage in Isaiah 43. I ran across it today preparing for a sermon coming up. It's was like a drink of fresh, cool water.

Is. 43: 18-19
[Thus says the LORD:]
Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.

I am looking for the New Thing. I am looking for the Way in the Wilderness. I am looking for the River in the Desert. It is springing forth. Lord, help me to perceive it. Help those that love me to perceive it. Give them eyes to see, and ears to hear. Even more, help me to see and hear the right voices. Maybe the admonitions of my beloveds are the voice of God, the very ones which I need to hear. And that is wisdom incarnate, the discerning of the calls to which to listen.

As the doors close on this season of my life, and new doors open, help me LORD to know which doors to step into and fully claim your calling and grace. Twice before I have followed my sense of your call, and the world would call them abysmal failures. But stemming from those failures I have gotten my greatest treasures. I got what I needed, not what I wanted. And who knows. The third time may be the charm. My calling away may be what this path, as winding and circuitous as it has been, may have been preparing me for the next steps. In fact, it has, I just cannot see it from here.

"Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" The New Thing is out there. Prepare LORD for whatever it could be.