March 24, 2026
God tells His people not to stay trapped in the past because He is doing a new thing, making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
Devotional: Sometimes what binds us is not only pain. Sometimes it is the story we keep telling ourselves about what can never change. Isaiah speaks to people who had every reason to feel stuck in the past. They knew loss. They knew exile. They knew what it felt like to look around and see nothing but dry ground. And God says, I am doing a new thing.
That does not mean the old pain was imaginary. It means it is not final. God does not tell His people to deny what happened. He tells them not to live as though the past has the final say over the future. That is a needed word for anyone who has gotten used to the tomb.
When Jesus calls Lazarus out, He is not just restoring one life. He is showing what God has always been doing, making a way where people saw none. Bringing water to dry ground. Bringing life where hope had been buried. Lent invites us to look honestly at what has gone dry in us, but not to assume that dry places cannot bloom again.
You may not know yet what the new thing looks like. It may begin quietly. It may not look dramatic at first. But God has not run out of ways to make a path through what feels shut down.
Action: Ask God to show you one place where you have assumed nothing can change.
Prayer: God of new things, thank You that You are not finished with me. In the places where my heart feels dry, guarded, or tired, make a way. Help me stop treating the past as if it has the final word. Open my eyes to the quiet beginnings of Your work, even if they do not look dramatic yet. Teach me to trust that You are still making streams in wastelands and roads through wilderness places. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Thought for the Day: What feels like a wasteland to you is not beyond God’s new work.
Isaiah 43:18–19 reminds us that God is still doing new things, even in wilderness places. Dry ground does not scare Him. Closed places do not stop Him. He still makes a way where we cannot yet see one.
