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01-09-2008, 04:26 PM
January 9
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
—Isaiah 43: 19
Almost everyone enjoys a nice surprise—an unexpected gift, a visit from an old friend, a financial windfall. But when it comes to the general course of our lives, we'd prefer to know what's next. We like to be prepared.
Ironically, though, when we find this sort of predictability in books and films, it turns us off. We want their plots to be complex, their characters to be three-dimensional people who change—and are changed—by the circumstances of their lives.
Similarly, when we travel, we're drawn not to the prefab landscapes that line our interstates, but to weather-worn places that surprise us with their twisting trails, hidden coves, and precipitous cliffs.
We have a hunger for the real, and part of being real is undergoing change.
Often we imagine that knowing God is like knowing how to locate the capital of Kansas on the map; as long as we have the coordinates, we can find it. But God, who is the ultimate reality, is never as predictable as that.
Any relationship with the divine is going to be filled with surprises and change, including changes in ourselves. God will always be doing a "new thing," always leading us down paths we've never imagined, always appearing when we expect it least.
O God, keep me open to being changed, and continue to do new things in my life.
The Signposts
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
—Isaiah 43: 19
Almost everyone enjoys a nice surprise—an unexpected gift, a visit from an old friend, a financial windfall. But when it comes to the general course of our lives, we'd prefer to know what's next. We like to be prepared.
Ironically, though, when we find this sort of predictability in books and films, it turns us off. We want their plots to be complex, their characters to be three-dimensional people who change—and are changed—by the circumstances of their lives.
Similarly, when we travel, we're drawn not to the prefab landscapes that line our interstates, but to weather-worn places that surprise us with their twisting trails, hidden coves, and precipitous cliffs.
We have a hunger for the real, and part of being real is undergoing change.
Often we imagine that knowing God is like knowing how to locate the capital of Kansas on the map; as long as we have the coordinates, we can find it. But God, who is the ultimate reality, is never as predictable as that.
Any relationship with the divine is going to be filled with surprises and change, including changes in ourselves. God will always be doing a "new thing," always leading us down paths we've never imagined, always appearing when we expect it least.
O God, keep me open to being changed, and continue to do new things in my life.
The Signposts