Look! I’m doing a new thing; now it sprouts up; don’t you recognize it? (Isaiah 43:19a, CEB)
“How long do you want to keep this car?”
Those are words you really don’t want to hear when you take your auto into the mechanic for what you think is just one thing, but turns out to be many things. We’ve had our Honda Odyssey for 10 ½ years and it’s held up pretty well, but 7 ½ years of city driving has taken its toll. I told the mechanic last summer that we hoped to squeeze a couple more years out of it, but some little thing seems to pop up every month since then (the latest: our rear-window wiper doesn’t work and is stuck in the up position as seen above) and it may be time to get a new car.
Since we’re dipping our toes in the car-buying market, of course, we are paying close attention to other cars as we walk and drive by them. What about that one? Is that one too big? I wonder if our soon-to-be-driving daughter could handle it? Our attention has shifted to the new and I’m developing some slight scorn for our current car.
The passage from Isaiah is a favorite for many because we usually like new things. Whenever I’ve prayed over the verse, I’ve asked for the eyes to see what new things God might be doing in my midst so that I can, indeed, recognize them. This was a Scripture I read during my prayer time last week and, again, as I was in expectation for God’s next new thing, I had a sense that God was saying something different: What about you?
Say what?
What about you? Maybe you should be the new thing.
In all the years, I’ve read this verse, it was the first time that it dawned on me that instead of thinking that God is always going to do a new thing external to my life, it may be I’m the new thing, that God is transforming me, every single day. I’ve always believed that God can transform our lives, but thinking of myself as the new thing that God is creating? It really affected my day. I am being transformed and it is sprouting up, moment by moment. Will I recognize it? Or will my eyes and mind only drift to new things out there, rather than the “old” thing that is me. God can do amazing things, new things. Even within me. Even within you.