This page will always be as the title suggests. This section will be where I will publish thoughts and testimony, to share from the Bible and encourage.
Hello everyone!
I'm a bit late again this month.
I was not really sure what I wanted to post this month. At first I was going to return to my series, 'Pondering on the Psalms', but I was not really settled on that, but then a verse of scripture has been mentioned in the last few days a couple of times and I decided that was going to be the subject this month.
Before, I get to that, it is hard to ignore that today, the 8th May, is the 80th Anniversary of VE Day.
When they had the first display of the ceramic poppies at the Tower of London, I was intrigued when a relative in Tilbury posted an article in their local newspaper about war veterans from the area. I was intrigued because she has posted about a William Cooper. My mum always told us about her Uncle Will who fought and died in the WW1. Having established this was the same William Cooper that my mum talked about I set about contacting the newspaper and subsequently got hold of copies of his war letters. This was a established thing, that soldiers wrote home to the local newspaper and had them published. They are incredible letters, and so matter of fact. In one of them, he talks about being treated to an extra bombardment due to the Kaiser's birthday. My Great Uncle Will was a teacher and when he first tried to sign up they refused his application, but he tried again and was accepted. He went out and fought and never came home. One sacrifice among many then and since.
So, to this month thought....
Isaiah 43 v 18-19
"Do not remember the past events; pay no attention to things of old. Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do not you see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert".
Do not remember the former things: As Isaiah wrote prophetically to Israel, they were mired in the desperate circumstances of captivity and exile. God wanted to put their eyes on the new work He would do, so He began with a reminder to not remember the former things. If they were stuck in the failure and sin and discouragement of the past, they would never go forward to the new thing God had for them.
The 'past' or 'old things' can be very powerful. They can project into our future and prevent us having all that God has planned. You can find yourself in a situation that looks like something you have experienced before and get that 'here we go again' feeling. I am not going to try and offer up any easy answers, except we just have to keep trusting God. His ways and thoughts are not like ours.
Is 55 v 8-9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
God does not think like we do, so we can tie ourselves in knots expecting Him to or get disappointed.
God's ways are not like ours so again we can get very confused and disappointed when He does not act how we would like or expect.
Hebrews 12 v 2 Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
John 1 v 6 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Trust the author and finisher of our faith. Trust the one who knows His plans for us. He is the way, the truth and the life. Our life is in Him.
It is a fascinating – and instructive – switch between Isaiah 43:16-17 and Isaiah 43:18. In Isaiah 43:16-17, Israel was told to look to the past by remembering the great things God did for them at the Red Sea. But in Isaiah 43:18, they were told, do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. This shows us that there is a sense in which we must remember the past, in terms of God’s great work on our behalf. There is also a sense in which we must forsake and forget the past, with all its discouragement and defeat, and move on to what God has for us in the future.
Behold, I will do a new thing: Staying stuck in the past can keep us from the new thing God wants to do. If Israel stayed stuck in the discouragement and seduction of Babylon, they would never look for the new thing of release from exile.
We can make an idol out of the “new.” We can err as the people of Athens did who spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing (Acts 17:21). We can be tossed about by every wind of doctrine. But we can also err on the other side of the balance, and work against the new thing God wants to do.
Shall you not know it? God asks the same question today. “Will you stay in step with My Spirit? When He leads into something new, shall you not know it?”
I will even make a road in the wilderness: Between the captivity in Babylon and the return to Israel lay hundreds of miles of wilderness. God’s people didn’t need to be afraid because God would make a road in the wilderness, provide rivers in the desert, and even protect His people from animals, because the beast of the field will honour Me, the LORD says.
Often, when God makes a promise, we worry about the details or the obstacles for the fulfilment of the promise. God replies to us, “Don’t worry about it at all. I will even make a road in the wilderness. I have resources and plans you don’t know about. Leave those problems to Me.”
Endnote:
CSB Bible - Holman Bibles
Enduring Word Commentary
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