A Listening Ear

“Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert." (Isaiah 43:19)

It’s a new season. Autumn has begun.

There is something beautiful about autumn colours. Think of those multi-coloured leaves with the low sunlight streaming through the trees.

But autumn, beautiful as it may be, is also a time of dying. Those gorgeous colours are from foliage that is dying.

For some time now, the LORD has been speaking to us about a new thing, a new season. (Hence the verse above. Familiar to many, but alive to us right now). We believe the LORD is doing something new in the world, in our nation, in our church families (in Lisburn and Tyrone), but He has also made this verse (and many others) come alive for us as a couple serving Him in the nations.

An important step in the transition of seasons, and to seeing and inheriting what Heaven is bringing to us, is recognising there needs to be a dying to the old, to self and to what was life-giving in the old, past season.

The thing about a new thing is that the old strategies do not carry over. They were right for their season. They worked. They are not what He is declaring now, and holding on to them is the surest way to miss what is springing forth.

For us personally, on 31st August, we left one house and a familiar community in Ballyclare to move West (across the Bann river, often seen too as a cultural demarcation line and shift in our nation from the ‘East to West of Bann’) and we moved to another small town in Co. Tyrone. We woke up in our new home base on the first day of autumn.

Much is different. We sense that there is a new and different ministry for us here in the West and for us generally in the ministry role He has for us globally. I have already alluded to this before (“A Walk in the Nations”). It is becoming clearer that “walking” (to make disciples and reach the lost) in the nations is on the cards and maybe coming as soon as January in the New Year! More about that later.

However, just as it is a time for letting go of the old, it is also a time for a silent, quiet listening ear in the secret place, to hear what the LORD is asking of us, to discern His ‘new thing’ and the strategies He has for us. We are so aware of the importance of hearing Him clearly and hearing all He wants to say … in detail. (And we also need to die to “the hurry”)!

Meanwhile, we also praise and sing in the promise of what is to come, clothing ourselves in readiness, in faith and appropriately for the new season we have entered.