isaiah 43 and a new path

I have really not written in a long time, which is a shame! I think a lot has happened in my heart since last December.

This spring and summer, I have developed a new interest and passion: I want to go serve overseas in China teaching English. Of course, I want to discern this calling--I plan to wait and go next year. I have already started looking into a program to go with, and they have been very helpful and caring. I think that I have picked the right group. :)

At the beginning of the summer, I opened the Word to Isaiah 43, and broke out in spontaneous worship. I worshiped God because of who He is--a Mighty Redeemer, who gathers his children that have been scattered. He is ever-present, holding our hands as we pass through difficulty. He never leaves us. We are honored and precious in His sight. We are His witnesses--who else will tell those that are blind and deaf that they have a Healer, a Redeemer, a Lord?

My favorite part is this:

"Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert." Isaiah 43:18-19

I am believing this to be true for me--later in the passage it says that Israel has not called upon the Lord, and we have made Him weary with our sins. I think this past year was not good, and I have made many mistakes. But for His own sake I think the Lord blots out my sin (v.25)--praise to the Lord Jesus! I pray that it is true that He is doing a new thing.

If anyone reads this, please pray for me that the Lord will be working anew in me this coming year. I want to go where He wants me to go, and if this idea to go to China is my own fabrication, let it be sooner rather than later that I let go of it, and pursue instead what He wants. But if it is from God, that I would pursue Him with all abandon and joyfully accept the calling He has put before me.