A New Thing

Isaiah 43:18-19

Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.

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Once I used to join in
every boy and girl was my friend.
Now there's revolution, but they don't know
what they're fighting.
Let us close out eyes;
outside their lives go on much faster.
Oh, we won't give in,
we'll keep living in the past.

"Living in the Past" by Jethro Tull

God says "I am about to do a new thing." Tull says "I don't care, I'm not falling for it." Guess which has more staying power? Even if Jethro Tull can last forever, God has eternity as a head start.

God never changes. This is true. What is also true is that God has never stopped creating. We talk about a love of "the good old days," a time when things were simpler. This could be true, it could be just as true that "the good old days" were just the days that we were unaware of all of the changes happening in our lives. Ignorance is bliss.

Tull says that there's revolution, but we don''t know what we're fighting. That's true as far as it goes. God says not to be beholden to nostalgia, don't remember the former things or consider the things of old. There's comfort in "the good old days" though. Remembering what we learned on our parent's knees, but these words are only as useful as they are to perceive the new thing God does.

God says "I am about to do a new thing" and we need to look with an eye to what is happening. Yet Tull has one thing right, God builds on the foundation laid over eternity. So there is value to what God has done in the past, because that is where the future takes its root.

But beware, if we choose to live in the foundation we will never see the Son.