Do you have regrets in life? Wish you paid more attention in school? Wish you were more confident earlier on? Wonder what happened in a failed relationship? Job loss? Missed opportunities?
How do those regrets affect you? Do you think about them often and wish you acted differently? Do you wonder how it happened? Do you think if you analyzed it enough and understood it enough, you could change? Do you worry about how to make things right now?
Listen to the Lord in the following verses.
“Forget the former things; do not dwell in 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 desert and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:18-19).
In other words, of course we humans make mistakes. But even if we do great things, we are still not to dwell on those things. We are not to dwell on the past or ourselves, period. We are to fix our thoughts on God. The God we serve is able to make a way in the desert and bring water to a wasteland. The Bible says it right here! If our lives feel like a wasteland, God can revive that. If our lives feel barren, God can bring life there too!
And just because God has not done something in your life before or ever, does not limit what He can do now. The Bible is filled with people who experienced God in new ways. And He has not run out of ways to provide for His people! He can care for you in a new way that even you do not yet perceive. “See, [He is] doing a new thing” (Isaiah 43:19).
Our job as followers of Christ, is to perceive it! We are to look for the ways God is working. We are to see it and trust that He is working even when we cannot see it.
Can you imagine if Jesus lived with regrets? “If only I didn’t choose Judas as my disciple, he wouldn’t have betrayed me! I shouldn’t have given that message when the Pharisees were there, because now they want to kill me. Oh if only that person I healed would stop telling everyone about Me like I asked him to! Shouldn’t have healed him. Why did I choose these disciples? They’re so dense!” Wait, what? That’s ridiculous! Jesus never regretted things because He lived perfectly and knew all things and trusted God. Of course we don’t live perfectly, but do we trust God? Even when things do not go our way?
The verses above were actually given to the Israelites around the time of their being taken captive by another nation. I know that sounds like, “surprise!” but it still fits what we have been talking about. The Israelites were likely regretting not following God earlier. They were regretting the sinful lives that led to their captivity. Yet they were also likely missing living in the promised land. They had a lot to regret and miss.
But the Lord encouraged them through these verses that He was still their God, even in the desert or wastelands. The same God of the Israelites is still God today. And He can still do a new thing in your life, at your current life stage.
So “forget the former things” and “do not dwell on the past” (Isaiah 43:18). Because we serve a God who can do new things, like make a way in the desert or a stream in a wasteland (Isaiah 43:19). Just keep your eyes open and pray to be able to perceive it!
