New. Like, For Real.

The tree is down. The lights are unplugged, and my home is back to looking like its most basic self. Just like that, Christmas is over. Tucked away into boxes to be forgotten for another year. 

I usually don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I’ve heard of people picking a word of the year. I find that they pluck the words with the most syllables from the list of choices. Definitions that carry a little weight with their stride. Powerful, impactful, purposeful. As much as I love words, I’ve never been a fan of this. Maybe it’s because I can barely choose a restaurant to eat at on any given night, so how could I possibly boil my entire year down into one short strand of letters? Impossible. 

Instead, I’m pulling out a verse for the year ahead. And this year, like the spunkiest little kitty that joined my home a couple years ago, this verse…well, I like to think it found me. I didn’t have to mull it over or scan the sloppy pastel highlighter streaks in my Bible to hunt it down. The best things sometimes just fall right into your lap and nestle in like they belonged there all along. 

God Is Doing a New Thing

“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.” – Isaiah 43:18-19

Forgetting the Former Things

See, I have a tendency of craving a little look over my shoulder. Dwelling in the past, wondering what could’ve been, how I might’ve made a different choice, or what should’ve never even happened at all. I let my imagination run wild, scribbling scenarios and repainting scenes, all until I pull my mind back into the present and realize I’d taken more than a trip down memory lane—I’d fallen into a pit of the past.

When the Past Feels Safer Than the Unknown

Doors left with a wedge, letting in a glimmer of light, or a window cracked so maybe I could pry my little fingers under the sill to shimmy it up and find something I’d need. A reason to turn around and linger in a place I’m meant to walk away from. But it feels safe back there. Familiar. There are things I really don’t want to leave behind, but the further I walk forward, the smaller they become and I can’t let that happen…can I?

Faith in the Things Not Yet Seen

This verse from Isaiah yanks me into a presence that relies solely on faith. The sheer act of hope in the things not seen. That’s faith. And the more I stall or remember or dwell, my faith dwindles. It has been dwindling for a while now without me even realizing it. That’s probably what the enemy wanted, for me to not even realize something so precious was slipping from my fingers as he kept my gaze so tightly on things of the past. 

Ahead, all I see are brick walls, locked doors, empty shelves with no options. Why would I ever walk into that when I had a few cracked doors in that one dim hallway behind me? But when I sink into these holy words, I’m reminded that God does new things. Not refurbished things. Not new versions of things. Not upgraded things. New things. Completely and totally new…as in, I can’t even fathom what it might be, because, well, it’s new. It’s beyond me. It’s the parted sea. It’s manna in the wilderness. I know it’s possible because I’ve seen him do it before, but how quickly I forget and turn back to a place where I’m stuck, my feet glued to the ground. 

Trusting God in a New Season

My eyes see a dead end. But His vision is so much greater. This year, will I be able to let go of the former things and trust that he can make streams in a desert? I can resolve to exercise more, or eat better, or wake up earlier—those things all feel doable. But to commit to letting go of my list altogether and trusting the one who makes a way when there seems to be no way…that feels hard in a sort of I-don’t-have-to-do-anything type of way. Like, it won’t pull a muscle or leave me tired, so how will I know it’s working? I guess I’ll put this verse before me, and see what God does, because if God is doing a new thing, then my job isn’t to understand it—only to follow. Here we go.