Got any Wastelands?

Wastelands are deserts…. dry spells….. times when God seems far away and distant …. times when we are thirsty for Him and can’t seem to find Him.   Times when our souls feel dry and parched.

I was listening to this passage on Monday from Isaiah 43:

“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.

And when I realized that this was the verse that I had shared with my team the first week I was at my job.  I had no idea what was ahead.

In the past when I read this passage I read the words (my paraphrase) “I am doing  a new thing!  It’s springing up, get it?”

What I didn’t focus on was the next verse... a way in the wilderness, a stream in the wasteland.   Sometimes in order to get new things, we have to spend some time wandering in the wilderness.  Moses spent most of his life there and he was one of the greatest leaders of all time.  Jesus, even though He was God, in order to understand humanity, had to spend forty days there.

As human beings we all want to find a way apart from the wilderness and enjoy springs without wasteland.  But they go together and if even Jesus wasn’t spared from that experience in His life, we can’t expect to be either.

If you are finding yourself in a wasteland right now or you feel like you are wandering in the desert, God is doing a new thing.   Right there in the midst of the dry spell, he’s making streams and showing the way.   Look for them and you’ll find them!