Same God, New Thing

Isaiah is a wonderful book. Of course, all of God’s Word is wonderful, but Isaiah is one of my favorites. There are so many diamonds hidden among its pages just waiting to be mined. One of these gems is found in chapter 43. I vividly remember the first time Isaiah 43:18-19 lodged in my consciousness. Having read Isaiah multiple times, I had read these verses before, but it wasn’t until one day in high school, when someone shared them as ones that the Lord impressed upon her heart during a season of change, that they really stuck with me.

Ever since then, when I come across this passage reading through Isaiah, I think of that person and her testimony. But a couple of weeks ago, as I read the chapter again, the context of the verses jumped out at me, and I noticed elements of the passage I had never noticed before. Before we dig in, here’s Isaiah 43:16-21 (ESV) in full:

Thus says the LORD,
    who makes a way in the sea,
    a path in the mighty waters,
  who brings forth chariot and horse,
    army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
    they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
 “Remember not the former things,
    nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
    and rivers in the desert.
The wild beasts will honor me,
    the jackals and the ostriches,
for I give water in the wilderness,
    rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
     the people whom I formed for myself
that they might declare my praise.”

One of the things that has stood out most to me about this passage is the admonition to “remember not.” So many times throughout the Old Testament, God tells His people to remember—remember how He brought them out of Egypt, remember the commands He gave them, remember how He led them through the wilderness and into the land He had promised them, remember how they put Him to the test. But here, He tells His people to forget. This imperative stands unique in Scripture, so it’s worth taking a closer look.

The command to remember not is not written in a vacuum. It is sandwiched between a description of what God has done and a promise of what He will do. Notice how God is described in verse 16. His covenantal name, Yahweh (LORD) is used, and this covenantal God is one “who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters” (v.16). The following verse makes it clear that the passage is alluding to the Israelites’ crossing the Red Sea on dry ground and watching as the Egyptian army was destroyed as the waters crashed down on them (v. 17). Typically, when we come across verses like this, we see God telling His people to remember this event that occurred, but instead He says, “Remember not the former things […] I am doing a new thing” (vv. 18-19). This begs the question, what new thing? So we keep reading.

On the other side of verses 18 and 19a, God promises that he “will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (v. 20). So this is the new thing, but do you see the parallelism between the new thing and the former thing? There is both comparison and contrast in God’s actions and in the way they are described. In verse 16, God “makes a way in the sea.” In verse 19, He “will make a way in the wilderness.” In verse 16, He creates dry ground in the midst of a massive body of water. In verse 19, He does the opposite, creating running water in the midst of a mass of parched land. Verse 16 is the “former things,” and verse 19 is the “new thing,” but both involve the same elements—water and dry ground—and both involve His making a way.

So why would God tell His people to forget the “former things” that displayed His power so mightily? Perhaps it is so that they—and we—can learn to recognize that, while God is always at work, He does not always work in the same way. Sometimes the water is the issue, and He keeps us from drowning; other times the dryness is the issue, and He keeps us from dying of thirst. Sometimes He gives us firm ground to walk on, and other times He gives us flowing rivers to be satisfied by.  Sometimes the way is to help us pass through our trial, and other times the way is to sustain us in the midst of it.

When we see God work in a given situation, we tend to hold onto that memory, cherishing the reminder of how we saw Him move. But sometimes we hold onto the memory so tightly that it clouds our vision for what else He can do, how else He can work. Then, when another trial comes, we expect Him to come through just like He did the last time. We think that because He is the same God, He will always provide in the same way, and we become disappointed at best or doubtful at worst when He doesn’t make a way in the same manner in which He did before.

But just because the way doesn’t look like it did in former situations, doesn’t mean that the way isn’t there. God is the same God, and He always makes a way; it’s just that sometimes the way comes in a form we didn’t expect. Sometimes we’re looking for a path through our circumstance and don’t even realize that what we really need is a river in the middle of it. Sometimes we are so focused on the former things that we miss seeing the new thing He is doing in our lives.

Whatever we face, God is the same today as He has always been, which means that He is working, because He is an active God. He, who knows our needs perfectly and completely, is making a way, and He is doing it all so that we, the “people whom [He] formed for [Himself], might declare [His] praise” (v. 21). He is the same God, doing a new thing. Oh that we may have the eyes to perceive it and live lives that declare His praise.

To read the Arabic translation of this post, click here.  

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