Last week I went to Palmerston North with Greg to visit a few churches, see what he does and get a feel for the network. It was awesome.
I was praying before I left and I felt like God spoke a scripture to take with me, maybe a word for someone else, or maybe a word for me. It turned out both in the end. It was Isaiah 43:19;
“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”
It’s an incredible scripture, spoken to the Israelites in a moment of hopelessness after they had been over run by the Babylonians. In a barren situation where by all appearances God seemed to have deserted them, he in fact promised them something completely new. It reminds me of that Kevin Prosch song we sing here a bit ‘For he has wounded us, but he will bandage us’.
God has a way of speaking into the dark places and bringing new life. Even when it feels and looks like no good thing can come out of us or our situation, Christ brings out new streams.
On Sunday night, Greg shared that the word for “new” in the Hebrew is “chadesh”. It means to restore, to repair, and to renew. And he felt that the scripture is a word for Edge.
The chorus of the Kevin Prosch song is ‘he will come to us like rain, spring rain’. It’s hard sometimes to believe that God can create streams in the desert, and yet we the Church have Gods Holy Spirit, and we are the river God has sent into a thirsty world.
God is our spring rain, and in him we are the worlds. It’s exciting to know, that for us and for the world, God is doing a new thing.
Strahan.
