"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 43:19
I've often wondered about this verse. I understood the rivers in the desert, and how God can pour impossible vitality into spiritually dry, barren lives! But the way through the desert? You wouldn't think that was so difficult! After all, there's not many barriers out there! I'd begun to think of it more as a tropical island wild-lands, and pictured God hacking a pathway through the jungle for me to get through! It made more sense to me, that this would be a 'God-level' undertaking! Impossible without him! But this morning I read something that helped me to see a version in the desert wasteland.
The Israelites had left Egypt. God was taking them to their promised land. But instead of taking the trade, and most direct route, which would have been east and then north-east, God lead them south, towards the Red Sea. He had a good reason for it! These were a people who'd been subjected to years of oppression! They weren't ready to take on the warring Philistines in order to pass through their lands! Their courage would fail them! And so God led them at first, in the opposite direction than logic would have taken them. And he knew when Pharaoh heard of their position, he'd say "They are bewildered by the land; the wilderness has closed them in." Exodus 14:3
Pharaoh was going to think they were lost! That the desert wilderness had confused them, and they had no clue how to get out! That the 'endless' sameness of it all had caused their disorientation - that they did not know the way through!
This is the meaning of the "way in the wilderness"! It's when he leads us through, even though we feel totally lost and don't know which way to turn! And sometimes it feels like we're going the wrong way!! We struggle with the reasons and the logic behind where we are going! And then - despite all the 'impossibles' - he leads us out the other side! And we're exactly where we need to be!
Isn't it cool when God joins up points in stories that you haven't connected before?!!! 😊
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