Isaiah 43: The power of perception

Tony Daniels invites us to sharpen our spiritual vision.

Key text

• Isaiah 43:19

The way we grow and develop in our understanding of God, faith and discipleship often starts small. There are no ‘microwave dynamics’ in the Kingdom of God. However, by God’s Spirit of grace, he causes things to grow in beautiful ways.

This Harvest, we look at the needs of our communities to discern what God might be doing and the part he asks us to play. In Isaiah 43:19, God says: ‘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 wasteland.’

God can bring that spring of life in the most unexpected places. God is already at work in our communities. The question is not whether he is moving, but whether we can perceive it and join him in what he is doing. Maybe we’re looking for something big and missing the beauty of small beginnings. God’s ‘new thing’ offers hope, provision and renewal.

Pause and reflect

• How can we increase our ability to discern the new things God is doing?

Scripture often reminds us that we should live in a state of readiness and expectation, setting our minds on things above – on the heavenly, the spiritual – rather than the earthly (see 1 Peter 1:13 and Colossians 3:2). We need spiritual perception to truly understand what God wants to do in our local contexts and expressions. We need our spiritual antennae up, ready to receive new direction and revelation from God.

Pause and reflect

• How might we ensure our minds are set to expect the unexpected and miraculous ways of God?
• What might this look like outside the four walls of the church?

God doesn’t always work in ways we think he will. God moves without limitations. God can bring ‘streams in a wasteland’. Remove any of your presumptions of God. Instead, prayerfully ask what he is already doing. Then, wait and listen! What does God bring to mind? Let the Holy Spirit breathe divine, creative Kingdom intentions to shape your community.

As Christians, we often need to learn to practise the art of looking beyond what we see with our natural senses. Some have phrased this as the ‘Isaiah practice’, relating to his vision in the Temple: ‘In the year King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up’ (Isaiah 6:1 English Standard Version).

There are times when we need to ask for an expansive vision. In these prophetic moments, God often emphasises a specific part of his nature to us. We might call this spiritual revelation – looking to what could be on the horizon and beyond, within our communities and local contexts, with God’s eyes. By faith, however, we may need to prophetically squint to see it – but the new thing springing up will come into focus! Thus we too can exclaim, as Jacob did, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it’ (Genesis 28:16).

Remember that, sometimes, God hides things – just like his Kingdom – in plain sight.

Pause and reflect

• What specific prayers could we start to pray, to seek that new perspective with fresh vision?

God could be saying to us: ‘What’s in your hands?’ His Spirit enables us to perceive what we already hold in a new light. What gifts lay dormant within us? What skill, knowledge or experience could God utilise? Often, God uses what we already have – those resources, gifts and strengths within our community waiting to be put into action.

We are called to partner with God in his provision. Throughout the Bible we see God take what appears to be our little and transform it into abundance for the sake of his children. A small offering of food feeds thousands (see John 6:1–15). A single jar of olive oil fills enough containers to clear a family’s debt and sustain them into the future (see 2 Kings 4:1–7).

These stories reveal the heart of a loving God who desires to care for his people. While we are called to give sacrificially in obedience, it is God who brings the abundance that meets the needs of his people. As we partner him, we do so with an expectation – not of excess, but of faithful provision for the needs of our communities.

Wait patiently, then, for the harvest, knowing that God is ‘able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us’ (Ephesians 3:20). Let us find joy in releasing what he has placed in our hands for the furtherance of his Kingdom!

Pause and reflect

• How might we activate what’s already ‘in our hands’?
• How might God be asking us to step out in faith for those on the margins of our communities, who are rejected or overlooked?

God’s ‘new thing’ might not begin with a big event or dramatic breakthrough. It might begin with a fresh perspective, a simple prayer, a renewed vision and always a willing heart. This Harvest, let us ask God to prepare our minds, sharpen our eyes, and open our hands so that we can recognise and participate in the work he is already doing around us.