A New Thing

 "Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." Isaiah 43:18-19.

I have noticed something in our Fellowship. People who saw God move seem to spend the rest of their lives seeking to see God move like that again. The excitement, the numbers, the explosive growth, the cutting edge challenges. But the Bible indicates that perhaps this is the wrong approach.

Chuck Smith, the pastor of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, was discouraged and thinking about quitting the ministry when the Jesus People revival broke out. Wayman Mitchell was discouraged and thinking about quitting the ministry when he took the little church in Prescott and revival broke out. Do you see a pattern? God moves in His time, not when we are strong and able.

The culture is different today. The issues are different today. It is not 1968 all over again. That was then, this is now. People are people, God is God, truth is truth. But things today are not identical to back then.

God, in this text, tells us that He makes roads in the wilderness, He doesn't repave freeways. God makes rivers in the desert, He doesn't replace dams and bridges over existing rivers. Let him that has ears, hear what the Spirit is saying.

Our job is to obey the truth that we have. To do what we know to do. And to realize that it's only when we are weak that we become truly strong in Christ.

Memories are funny things. We do not remember clearly. We filter our memories to suit our expectations. We do not have to tear everything down to rebuild it again. But we do have to be sensitive to see what God is doing today, and temper that by what we know from the past.

We do what we do as a Fellowship very well. Time will tell if what we do can last into the next generation of those who never knew the founders and leaders who saw it all begin.