With Christmas done and dusted, the reality that another year has all but slipped by is no doubt starting to sink in. Another year, really?! Okay, they're just dates on a calendar but still … it kind of focusses the mind, does it not? Sometimes the new year brings change, other times we're just looking ahead at business as usual. Sometimes we're looking forward to change, other times we loathe the idea. The same thing with business as usual. And sometimes, even though we think nothing's going to change, there's a major upheaval headed our way. So it can be just a tad perplexing contemplating the year ahead, whatever we think it may hold. At a time when Israel was in a terrible rut, towards the end of seventy years of slavery in Babylon (in which, by the way, they'd become all too comfortable) God says this to them through His prophet, Isaiah: Isaiah 43:19 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. (NRSV) A new thing? What new thing? That could be dicey. What does it mean for me?  They were the thoughts swilling around in the minds of the Israelites. Change, even for the better, can be scary, unsettling and disruptive. Look, you and I have no idea what this next year will bring. But as happened in this instance, where He restored His people to the Promised Land, God often brings His greatest works through seasons of upheaval — not despite them. Transition may feel like a wilderness, but it's often where His new beginnings are born. That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.  

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