Pictures of my life, hidden in the word

I read this today and I saw pictures of myself all throughout it... this is how God is speaking to me today.

Isaiah 43
¹⁵ I am the Lord, your Holy One,
Israel’s Creator and King.
¹⁶ I am the Lord, who opened a way through the waters,
making a dry path through the sea.
¹⁷ I called forth the mighty army of Egypt
with all its chariots and horses.
I drew them beneath the waves, and they drowned,
their lives snuffed out like a smoldering candlewick.
¹⁸ “But forget all that—
it is nothing compared to what I am going to do.
¹⁹ For I am about to do something new.
See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.
²⁰ The wild animals in the fields will thank me,
the jackals and owls, too,
for giving them water in the desert.
Yes, I will make rivers in the dry wasteland
so my chosen people can be refreshed.



I lived in the dry wasteland... the desert, from verses 19 and 20... i've been there a lot in the last few years. but in the last months since october and november, when I finally stripped away my old life, i've discovered beautiful, refreshing rivers throughout the wasteland--they've appeared in the form of true repentance, a deeply renewed spirit, redeemed relationships, and new relationships. These things--these blessings, these people....they are my rivers.

But I've found that when I follow the rivers to leave the desert, I'm in somewhat of a wilderness (v.19) ... that pathway through the wilderness-- God has made one for me.

What is the wilderness? Its the New...the Unknown...the Unfamiliar...the Scary...i've tried to build my own pathways. Four months ago I wanted to move to Germany. Three months ago I wanted to move to New York. But this pathway through the wilderness has taken one unexpected turn after another, He's torn apart plan after plan, He has made them, made me, nothing... as in verse 17... my plans have been "snuffed out like a smoldering candlewick". And then, God gets in my head, just like in v. 18 and simply tells me: "Forget all that--it is nothing compared to what I am going to do!"

So ...... I'm forgetting it. All of it.

Enough of my own plan, my own head, my absurd self-sovereignty. I'm going to trust God.

Still, I am a wild animal like those in verse 20...even after all of my own paths have been destroyed over and over again... I can do nothing else but thank him for giving me water in the desert...because I was so very thirsty.

He reminds me, "Yes, I will make rivers in the dry wasteland so my chosen people can be refreshed." (v.20)

So I rest... I am chosen, and I am refreshed.