Something new within me
By Jessica Brodie
When I got pregnant for the first time, I was hyper-aware of even the tiniest movement in my belly. I’d feel a tug or a flutter, and my heart would soar with joy. “It’s the baby!” I’d tell myself. The thrill of new life growing inside me made me feel important, as if I were fulfilling some grand purpose. Every scent, every touch, every sound seemed fifty times stronger, like I suddenly had superhero senses instead of my own. It was glorious!
I didn’t understand any of it, but I trusted these sensations, certain every tug and jostle meant my baby was thriving and growing, certain God was working things out as only He can. I felt God establishing it all within me, and it offered the most perfect bliss just to bask in that trust and know all I had to do was simply turn it all over to Him, and everything would be just fine. After a tough season of infertility, always wondering when or whether it would ever happen, this felt like paradise.
As my pregnancy progressed, I often sat in a state of almost-magical anticipation, waiting for my son to turn or shift inside my now-massive belly, waiting for him to say “good morning” with a gentle thrust of his heel or that slow, slippery manatee dance that meant he was relaxing. And when he was finally born and I cradled him in my arms, I remember knowing in my innermost being: This, Lord—this is what you’ve intended! Now I see!
The prophet Isaiah wrote about this state of heightened anticipation, this core understanding of God and His will at work in the world and in His people. “This is what the Lord says … 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 43:16, 18-19 NIV).
Sometimes I look back at certain times in my life, times I now know were important, and wonder why I didn’t sense what was happening then. How could I have been so blind as not to see God’s master plan? Why didn’t I understand all those changes and signs meant He was opening a new career path for me, or steering me away from a toxic relationship? Hindsight often makes everything so clear.
But in reality, most of us are so focused on our present concerns that we usually do not see God’s hand at work creating something new in us. It’s only later that we look back and realize, “Oh, that was why I didn’t get that job,” or “Oh, now I understand why the Holy Spirit nudged me to call her.” If we’re lucky, we’ve been obedient and made it easier for God’s will to prevail. Sometimes, however, we’ve been an obstacle, trying to manage things our way.
Often, I am guilty of reading the Old Testament with a skewed perspective. See, I know the end of the story—I know the Israelites did indeed make it to the Promised Land. I know Jerusalem fell and its people were carted off to Babylon. I know God’s son was born in the depths of poverty and not in some palace. I know He was betrayed, arrested, crucified, and killed, and I know He was resurrected. So I scoff, “Why did those stubborn Israelites not just trust God would provide them with food? Why didn’t they understand Jesus’s miracles were not just amazing blessings but the work of the true Messiah, come to show them the path to eternity? How could they have been so blind?”
Yet we, too, are that blind—every day. We fail to see the full picture, and doubts creep in. We don’t understand, and so instead of trusting and relaxing in God’s love, we go to great lengths to orchestrate what we think will fix the problem.
Isaiah offered God’s words to a people who had been through much and, time and again, just couldn’t seem to achieve salvation on their own. And so he offered hope: “Do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
It can be difficult to accept and delight in the changes God is working in our lives without an understanding of the bigger picture.
Of course, we can learn from our past. I know, looking back, that when I’ve sensed a change—in my body, or even in the very air around me—usually it has led to something new, something big, something profound. Maybe that sense is not me at all the Holy Spirit, crying out to me like God cried through Isaiah to the Israelites: “See, I am doing a new thing!”
I sense it now, sense God working something new within me. I don’t understand it yet, but I trust Him, just like I trusted Him when I felt my unborn son kicking and swirling within me.
His way is the only good, true, right way.
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