|
A few months ago for I decided to read through the book of Isaiah for my personal devotional time. Isaiah, in my oppinion is an amazing book, telling the story of a man who was apprehensive as to what God could do through him, and ultimatley it tells the story of what God has done, is doing and will do.
This morning while I was driving to class in downtown Toronto I was listening to my ipod and the song I was listening to (a Rise Against song for all you who are curious) triggered a verse in my mind. It was Isaiah 43, a section where the words of God are written for us. It is a pretty great scripture all about God's care and love for us, but there is one section that came to mind specifically, verse 16-19, which says this:
16 This is what the LORD says—
he who made a way through the sea,
a path through the mighty waters,
17 who drew out the chariots and horses,
the army and reinforcements together,
and they lay there, never to rise again,
extinguished, snuffed out like a wick:
18 "Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.
There is a lot more in the chapter that would be great to read. But I think this section really sums up a lot of where Brian has been going on Sunday mornings. God reminds the hearers of this, ancient Israel, that it was God that rescued them from the Exodus, taking them from slavery in Egypt and saving them on a journey through the wilderness (if your not familiar with the story it is pretty amazing and I think Brian is going to be going deeper into it in the coming weeks, or you can just watch the movie with the guy from the NRA in it around Easter.)
But, even though God did this amazing thing, this part of the story that the people find themselves in, the Exodus, he says don't dwell on the past, even forget the former things (which I must say I think is a direct reference to what life was like for the people in Egypt, though they were slaves they were comfortable with the daily grind of life because they knew what to expect.) And the reason they needed to forget was because God was doing a new thing. Something no one has seen before. Something even better then the rescue from slavery, the miracoulous parting of the sea, the bread that falls from the sky, something new, something better.
And that's the story we are part of. We have a great history of faith an amazing story to be part of. But we can't just get stuck in the way things were. In the stories of old, because the story is still being written. What point is a novel if we just think the introduction is so amazing we want to dwell on it and never keep reading?
The story we are in is still being written, and we have a part to play in it: seeing the new thing God is doing in our midst. So the question becomes, are you ready to stop reading the introduction and see where this story of God takes you?
|
