“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?’
Words from the good prophet Isaiah straight to my head and heart today…maybe to yours as well.
I’ll be honest with you….even though I have lived through some pretty tough battles and crises in my life, the monster that never seems to die is the one labeled “What’s Behind the Closed Door – Oh No, My Past! – ” and the label is always written in dark, scary blood red paint….permanent it would seem.
On a perfectly, seemingly normal day I begin my run and suddenly – Bam! – I run smack into a door – a closed one. It appears bolted from the inside with tags and messages announcing that there is no need to wrestle with the locks….that I closed this door years ago as a result of my own naivete’ or carelessness or worse, bad decisions. And so, today….this new day….I can run but only so far.
But, I long to push through that door. I want to be on the other side.
Yet, try as I might I can’t seem to muster up enough guts or strength to break those insidious locks and destroy those infernal tags that label me “failed, messed up, too late, too fat, too old, too too too much trouble.”
So, I reverse my steps and run back into the same ole room again.
My legs move but my heart doesn’t.
I am so done with that kind of runnng.
So, today I read and reread this amazing, terrifying invitation from good ole Isaiah.
It seems there has always been “a new thing” and “the new thing” has never been dependent upon my guts or my strength.
What an incredible relief.
“The new thing” seems to be about my Abba – my Father – and his love.
Love…that word again. Seems to crop up everywhere these days.
And it is that love that ever so gently places my shakey hand on the door knob, turns it ever so slightly, and bingo…ever so tenderly….that scary ole door creaks open.
And I am transformed into Dorothy landing upside down in the Wonderful World of Oz…beauty, hope, adventure, redemption.
And all those scary tags with scary messages from my past – “You can’t open that door. You lost the key. You missed your one and only chance. You are no longer invited to the party.”
Turns out they are not true. Lies. All of them.
I learned that “Forget” in these verses doesnt’ mean to literally “forget – as to never recall in our memories” but the word, “forget” here means “to remember without the memory having power over our present.”
I like that alot.
Memories remembered and redeemed.
I want my memories. I need them. I learn best from them.
But, I want them as fuel to push open the next doors not as dour deadbolts trapping me in rooms I was intended to leave.
So, if you keep running into the same ole doors…stop….pause…ignore the tags….simply turn the knob….and watch the door creak open…new things await….i promise.
