A trip across the wide-open spaces and deserts of Utah and Arizona and the mountains and nature of Colorado helped to clear the patterns and cobwebs of old thoughts of the past year. Sometimes all we need to move forward is a fresh perspective. This family trip, after a year of being shut-in with little opportunity to travel, was what was needed to give fresh ideas and impetus to my planning for next year’s work and creative efforts. Watch this space as the plans evolve!

CHANGE TAKES TIME

As I looked out at the vast open plains with only dry scrubby bushes here and there, I wondered what it must have been like for the Israelites to wander through the wilderness for forty years, not reaching their Promised Land. What would their perspective on God’s promise have looked like? Day after day, they trekked their families and herds hoping to find water to sustain their flocks and themselves. They sat wearily by their campfires at night using up the last of the manna for that day. Tomorrow morning they would be up again early to collect the manna. Same old routine year in and year out. This last year has certainly taught me about the mundaneness of the same old routines, when you get stuck in your head.

EVENTS MOVE US FORWARD

At times like this it is good to be reminded that God is still at work. In Isaiah 43 , He says “See I am doing a new thing.” Like geological processes are slow, sometimes we just need to know that God is still working even though we can’t see it.  He said, “I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.” Providing water requires an ‘event’, be it a rainstorm or snow in the winter, the impetus of the volume and the flow create the stream and makes a way.  The manna collected daily with the dew in the morning was sufficient to sustain life for the Israelites, but not enough to thrive. We need ‘events’ to give us new perspectives to help move us forward. We get stuck in our old ways, living in ‘auto’ mode, not really having to challenge, or thinking or ways of doing things. An ‘event’ like COVID had the desired effect of waking us all up to having to do things differently.

DO NOT DWELL ON THE PAST

The passage in Isaiah 43, tells us to ‘forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.” That is really what must happen for us to move forward and create new ways of doing things, responding to challenges, and relating to God and one another. How easy it is to fall back into old patterns, if we don’t cultivate new patterns and sustain them. What was God’s plan for the Israelites? He rescued them from oppression in Egypt to go to the Promised Land where they were to become His chosen people who could proclaim His praises and become a kingdom of priests, ushering in God’s Kingdom on earth. What would our perspective on God’s Kingdom on earth look like?

WE ALL CONTRIBUTE TO CHANGE OVER TIME

Did that happen? Not right then, but it still forged the way forward to when Christ would come to complete God’s redemption plan for all the people and nations of the world. Remember the geological processes – it takes a very long time. As I looked up at the steep rockfaces of the buttes and the weathered surfaces of the rocks where wind and rain had cut through the softer layers. How long had they been standing there? Perhaps we could look at life from the perspective of God’s agents of change. Our lives are like the wind and rain, each one slowly working out the plans God has for our lives, doing the tasks He had planned for us long ago, so that over time we each contribute to wearing down the old ways of thinking and culture. Eventually, God’s kingdom will come on earth.

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“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight [a]in the desert A highway for our God.4 Every valley shall be exalted And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth; The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Isaiah 40:3

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OUR RESPONSE TO CATACLYSMIC EVENTS

As the last quarter of this year approaches, lets us ask God for a fresh perspective on living out our mundane days. Refresh our vision for the approaching year to see new ways of looking, doing and being, that are part of His redemptive work of making all things new. “Now it springs up: do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.” It is God at work we are merely some of the agencies He uses besides the elements and cataclysmic events. It is our responses to those cataclysmic events that will be used by God to wear down the old and create the new.

Leaving the mountains and desert behind, I returned to the city with fresh vision and hope for the future. As the Psalmist said in Psalm 121 “I will lift up my eyes to the hills—From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” My perspective had changed. We are not alone in this struggle through life with its complexities and problems. The God of the mountains is still our God who is asking for our co-operation as agencies of change in this time frame we have been born into.