Advent Devotion – December 9 – Mickey Stueck

“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 wastelands.”

Isaiah 43:14-21

Scripture: Isaiah 43:14-21

As I sit in the hospital room with Jim where he has been for a week with pneumonia and sepsis, origins unknown, I find myself dwelling on our many years together. It’s lonely in this room. We are cut off from the outside world by four walls. There is medical equipment attached to his body trying to relieve him of the infection that courses through his body.

Perhaps, like the Israelites, we are so focused on the “desert” in which we reside in that we have forgotten that our God is always working. Perhaps, we have forgotten that God is going before us and is making a way through the wilderness of stress.

There is hope in that knowledge.

I am sure that if we think about the past chaos and tumult in our individual lives as well as our world and reflect on the good that has come out of those past trials, we can know that there is hope and grace even now. God has promised that God is doing a “new thing”. We just need to have faith that God always keeps God’s promise. After all, God’s ultimate promise was salvation. And God kept that promise by sending his only Son to die on the cross for us.

In this time of Advent as we anticipate the birth of our Savior, let us remember Jesus is “our way in the wilderness” Let that always be our hope and salvation.

 Mickey Stueck

Core Idea: In the midst of tumult, God creates new opportunities to experience hope and salvation.