God's New Path

By Cade Fisher, a senior peace, justice & conflict studies major from Goshen

The last couple of years we’ve heard desires to “return back to normal.” We just want things to go back to the way they were. But, we are at a time where God is about to do a new thing! Let us not be swept back into complacency and rely solely on tradition. We can forge new paths and reconnect in different ways.

I’m especially comforted by the first verse and the description of God as a God “who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters.” God can do things we can’t. In our tumultuous world, it is God who makes the path for us and supports us as we choose to walk it. It is God who has agency over the seas and we go where God leads us. While the raging waters around us might be frightening, we trust in God’s ability to protect and lead us, to walk with us on the path.

May we give praise to God and in doing so, find the strength to walk God’s new path’s in new ways.

Scripture: Isaiah 43:16-21 (NRSV)

Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, ¹⁷who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: ¹⁸Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. ¹⁹I 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. ²⁰The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, ²¹the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.