What does it mean for God to do a new thing?

Seven hundred years before Christ, the prophet Isaiah wrote, 

For I am about to do something new.

    See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?

I will make a pathway through the wilderness.

    I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. (Isaiah 43:19)

In the thirty-nine years that I have been following hard after Jesus, He’s done quite a few new things in me. I came into adulthood a rather calcified shell. Shame and criticism flowed freely through my home. By the time I was an adult, I felt ashamed for being so sensitive, ashamed for being smart, ashamed for not standing up for myself, ashamed for failing to be perfect. 

Because the shame was so suffocating and so pervasive, I shut down emotionally. I lost track of my heart. Over time, my false self became so meticulously crafted that I would sometimes forget who I was and do or say things I later regretted. Which of course led to more shame. 

Becoming born again has been a process—a very long process—for me. There was a specific moment in the car on the way back to college freshman year when I finally realized I could no longer deny the existence of God even though I really had no idea who Jesus was or how this decision would affect me.

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