Just this past month, I hosted a women’s event to celebrate eleven years of God’s faithfulness in my ministry…eleven years of seeing God show up in unexplainable ways and do unbelievable things. What a joy it was to see women gathered together from so many different places to lift high the name of Jesus in worship and to hear from God through His Word. As I opened Scripture that night to teach, I started with these inspired words from Isaiah:

“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 NIV

God is delivering a promise to us here in verse 19. He’s promising newness. He’s promising guidance. He’s promising provision. But before these promises are given to us in verse 19, God commands something of us. Did you catch that?

“Do not dwell on the past.”

These words resonate so much with me because I know how much I struggle to abide by them. It’s much easier to dwell on the mistakes and failures of my past than it is to stand in faith in my present and believe God to be faithful in the unknowns of my future. The latter feels scary, even impossible at times. We can get so easily caught up in regret, guilt, and shame when we reflect on our past, and in doing so, we forfeit the opportunity to instead rehearse the faithfulness of God in our past.

You see, Isaiah 43:18 isn’t telling us to never look back. It’s telling us that when we do, make sure we are looking at the right things. If we’re going to dwell on what happened in the past, let it be us choosing to rehearse how God was faithful to us in the past, so that we will trust and believe Him to be just as faithful in our present and in the future.

I believe, however, that there’s another implication here for us to consider. As the prophet Isaiah writes this chapter, he fills it with words reflecting on the great works of God for the nation of Israel in their past. He is in fact rehearsing God’s faithfulness to his audience. And then he gets to verse 18: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.”

What if God is not only inviting us out of the shame of our past shortcomings but also calling us to believe Him for even greater things, “new things” to come? What if God is asking us to believe that He’s that good, that He’s faithful, and that BIG to do something NEW in our lives, something like we’ve never seen Him do before? What if He’s calling us to believe in the God who is able to make a way where there seems to be no way? What if He’s inviting us to a faith that trusts in the God who brings life to desert-like places?

The God who created you and calls you by name is at work today, in you and around you, making a way in the wilderness of your life and bringing streams to the dry and parched places of your heart. Can you see Him? Do you perceive Him? His goodness is all around you.

- Cherie Wagner