Making Room for the New

“Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.”
Isaiah 43:18-19 (NIV)

Arise and shine, dear one! God is with you!

I opened the bottom cabinet of my bookshelf, searching for empty space to store my new Bibles and reference materials. Instead, I found shelves packed with binders of lesson plans, tests and quizzes, and AP Calculus test prep books, remnants of my life as a high school math teacher.

I loved those days. I loved the beauty of algebra and trigonometry, the excitement of seeing those lightbulb moments when a student finally understood a new concept. I poured my heart into those students, sharing the wonderful world of mathematics.

As I stared at those materials, memories flooded back, and I realized I'd long imagined I would return to the classroom. I once dreamed of teaching at a Christian school with my own kids alongside me, giving them the gift of private education. My life looks nothing like I imagined... but that's not a bad thing.

God has done something new. He's given me a love for teaching His Word, writing Bible studies, and a calling into ministry. To make space for this new season, I had to let the old one go, literally replacing curriculum with the books I now need.

In Isaiah, God's people were in exile, remembering His past faithfulness but needing to trust Him for something new. He was preparing a way of salvation beyond anything they could imagine, through Jesus.

Sometimes moving forward means releasing what was. We must surrender our plans and allow God to lead us into His, even when they look vastly different than we expected.

Is there something you need to let go of, dear one? Are you holding onto an old vision so tightly that there's no room for God's new thing? Sometimes our greatest act of faith is letting go.