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I don’t know what you want to call it — a new year, a new decade, a new century, or a new millennium. Whatever you want to call it, we all have to hope “it’s a new thing!”
At first glance, “it’s a new thing” is a horribly nebulous and lazily imprecise way to describe the exciting new time in which we find ourselves. I remember driving my dad nuts when I was teenager. I would talk about “that deal” or “that thing” or “that stuff.” He would sarcastically encourage me to be “a bit more descriptive.” I’m sure he would cringe hearing me speaking of January 2000 as “a new thing.” But I believe for Christians, “it’s a new thing” is the best phrase to describe our time.
The phrase goes back to the book of Isaiah and a time when God’s chosen people were discouraged prisoners of the mighty nation of Babylon. But God wanted them to know that he would set the agenda for their future. Historical “realities” or apparent geo-political circumstances did not dictate their future, their God did! “See, I am doing a new thing!” God declares.
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God would set the agenda for their future.
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I don’t know about you, but with all the hype and hoopla about Y2K, along with all the talk about a new millennium, those old words from Isaiah are exactly the ones I want to hear God say to his people today: “See, I am doing a new thing!”
We can know God’s faithfulness by looking at what he did in the past. But just as in Isaiah’s day, God wants us to look forward and see what he is about to do in our future. He wants to do “a new thing” with us. God is sovereign. He is in control. He is still God. Our future is in his hands. He is about to do something new and redemptive in our world. He wants us to be his partner in doing “a new thing” to redeem the world!
So I want to encourage you to join me by NOT calling it a new year, a new decade, a new century, or even a new millennium. It may not ever be any of those things. The Father may decide it’s time to send back the Son, and bring our world to a close before we finish a year, a decade, a century, or a millennium. But whatever he decides to do, it will be for our redemption and for the salvation of the lost. So let’s use a biblical phrase to signal that whatever happens in the coming years will be God’s work and God’s will. Let’s just say “It’s a new thing!”
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