Isaiah delivers these words to a people who are either already in exile or standing at the edge of it, a nation whose entire religious memory is built around one defining rescue: the exodus from Egypt, the parting sea, the pillar of fire. It is the story they tell their children, the story that explains who they are. And in the middle of announcing a fresh act of deliverance, God tells them, through Isaiah, to stop looking backward for it.
Forget the Former Things
“Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past.” This is a strange instruction from the same God who commanded festivals specifically designed to remember the exodus every single year. The forgetting being asked for here is not erasing what happened. It is refusing to let the past become the only place they expect God to show up. Nostalgia for a previous rescue can quietly become a reason to miss a new one.
See, I Am Doing a New Thing
The declaration that follows is present tense, not future tense. “See, I am doing a new thing.” Not I will do, someday, when conditions improve. It is already in motion, already breaking the surface, whether or not it has been recognised yet. God’s activity does not pause between the seasons a person can clearly identify.
Now It Springs Up, Do You Not Perceive It
“Now it springs up, do you not perceive it?” There is a real possibility named in this question that a new thing can be underway and still go unnoticed, simply because attention is fixed on what already happened rather than on what is currently happening. Perceiving it is not automatic. It requires letting go of the expectation that the next move will look exactly like the last one.
A Way in the Wilderness, Streams in the Wasteland
God promises a way through the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, provision precisely in the terrain that offers the least natural reason to expect it. The new thing is not promised for the easy stretch. It is promised for the driest ground, the place that by every ordinary measure should be the least likely location for anything to grow.
What August Taught You and What September Holds
August is ending. Some of it went the way you hoped, and some of it did not. Some things you were praying about in early August are still unresolved tonight, and it would be reasonable to carry that unfinished business straight into September as the defining fact of the new month. Isaiah suggests a different posture. Whatever August was, it is not the only measure of what God is doing. Something new is already springing up, in ground that may not look like it could hold anything yet.
Tomorrow morning, September begins. The same God who made a way through the wilderness in August, whether or not it was the way you expected, is already at work in the ground September will be planted in.
“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
Do not spend September looking for God only where you found him before. He is already doing something new, and it is already springing up.
