Do you not perceive it?
The new thing springing forth
There is a gentle challenge folded into the middle of one of God's tenderest promises. Behold, He says through Isaiah, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth. And then, before the comfort can settle, the question: will you not perceive it? It is asked of people still sitting in the rubble of the old, still turned to face what they lost. The new thing is not in the distant future waiting to be announced with trumpets. It is springing forth already, now, while you are still grieving — and the danger is not that it will fail to come but that you will fail to see it.
For the new rarely arrives looking like the old. A way is opening in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, but a way through trackless country does not look like the road you knew, and water in sand is easy to miss when your eyes are full of the river you remember. Isaiah presses the same point again: God has been showing them new things, hidden things they had not known. Hidden things. Part of how the long disorientation begins to turn is the slow, deliberate work of learning to perceive the new thing God has quietly already started.
“Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; will you not perceive it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”
— The LORD, through Isaiah — Isaiah 43:19 (WEB)
“I have showed you new things from this time, even hidden things, which you have not known.”
This is Disorientation turning toward dawn, and the turn here is as much about seeing as about happening. The new thing may already be springing forth while the old grief still holds the eye. The phase asks you to train your sight forward — not to abandon the grieving, but to refuse to let it blind you to the rivers God is already opening in the desert.
God may already be doing the new thing, springing it up small in the corners of your wilderness while your face is still turned toward the old. Grief fixes the eyes on what is gone, and it carries a cost you will not notice, for the new rarely arrives looking like the old restored. Grief has a way of fixing your eyes on what is gone. It is natural; it may even be right for a season. But it carries a cost the grieving rarely notice: while your face is turned back toward the old thing you lost, the new thing can be springing up right behind you, unseen. God's question is not a rebuke.
He is asking you to turn your head.
Because the new thing almost never announces itself. It comes small — a door you would not have called a door, a relationship you did not expect, a quiet steadiness where there used to be a roar. His question is gentle but pointed: will you not perceive it. Train your eyes to look forward as well as back, to notice the first green growth and the way opening where you were sure there was none. The new is often well underway before we see it. If you wait for the new to look like the old come back, you will walk straight past the rivers breaking out in your own desert.
So the discipline of the turn is partly a discipline of the eyes: to look forward as well as back, and to take seriously that God may already be doing the very thing you are still praying He would begin.
The Church, grieving what it has lost, can walk straight past the new thing God is already springing up, because the new so seldom resembles the old. Western and global Christianity keep waiting for renewal to look like the remembered river, and so miss the streams breaking out in the present desert. The LORD presses His tender, pointed question on the whole Body: will you not perceive it. Across history the Spirit has opened ways in trackless country, raised up movements no one was watching for, and done hidden things the Church had not known. The turn toward new bearings begins when the Body trains its sight forward and takes seriously that God may already be doing the very thing it still prays He would begin.
What can be shaken is the old thing we keep facing — the form that is passing, the road that is gone. What cannot be shaken is the God who is always making, whose new thing springs forth even in the desert. When the old is removed, His creating remains, opening rivers in the very wilderness we thought was only loss.
- Where has my grief for the old thing kept my eyes from turning to the new?
- What small, unfamiliar growth might already be springing up that I have been too sad to perceive?
- Am I waiting for the new thing to look like the old, and so missing the way God is actually opening?
Lord, my face has been turned to what I lost, and I may have walked past the new thing You were already beginning. Forgive my unperceiving eyes. Open them to the rivers breaking out in my desert, the way opening where I saw none. Let me grieve without going blind to the new. Amen.