“But forget all that — it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:18-19.

Do you need a new thing in your life? Are you in a rut? We all end up there from time to time. Maybe it’s a deep rut, or maybe it’s just a shallow rut. If that’s where you are, there’s a sure prescription to get you out of that rut and moving forward again.

In Isaiah 43:19, God speaks to Israel through the prophet Isaiah and promises to “do something new” if the nation is only aware of it. That verse is as relevant today as it was in Isaiah’s day. Every morning, we get up and start our routine, and it is a new day. God causes the sun to rise, the dew to appear on the grass, the birds to sing and the fresh breeze to blow. But we tend to be oblivious to all that because we hurriedly rush to meet our morning objectives, preparing to face another day. Is this the way God intended us to live? No, but we tend to rationalize that we need to move fast in a fast-moving world, but when we do happen to slow down, we realize that God may be continuously doing a new thing around us, and we are too busy to notice.

God creates a new day for us each morning and repeatedly presents us with opportunities to experience Him freshly. If you were asked when the last time you experienced God doing something new in your life? A few verses later, God tells Israel, “But, dear family of Jacob, you refuse to ask for my help. You have grown tired of me, O Israel!” (Verse 22). It appears that Israel had grown weary of the Lord. They were taking His grace for granted.

Isaiah 43:18 begins by saying, “But forget all that — it is nothing compared to what I am going to do.” The Israelites were stuck in the past. In Isaiah 43:19a, we see Him telling them why to stop looking back and longing for what was gone: “For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?” The truth still stands for us today that God is doing a new thing in our lives, creating a way in the wilderness of this world and springing forth a new thing if we only recognize it.

The Lord encourages His people to let go of the old and embrace the new, even though this new seems scary and unfamiliar. He wanted them to open their eyes to see He was still at work and sovereign. Keeping their eyes focused on the past blinded them to the promising new things He was doing.

If we are to see the “new” things God is doing, we need to slow down to see them. We need to pause and look for the signs of the new.  Look around for those signs of new life, of something beautiful forming under God’s hand, wherever you are in your life right now.

Discussion Questions:

1. Have you ever experienced a time when God did something new in your life, even when you weren’t expecting it?
2. What are some areas in your life where you might need to be open to God doing something new?
3. How can you cultivate a mindset of openness to new things God might want to bring into your life? 

“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” – Matthew 6:34 (MSG).

In a world consumed by nonstop notifications and instant gratification, it’s no wonder that teachers have noticed weaker student attention spans. In a recent survey of 107 students,  48.6 percent find themselves zoning out in class all the time, while 47.7 percent say they zone out sometimes. They are busy either on the phone or on their laptop. In some college classes where 250 students are listening to a professor lecture on 18th-century English literature, it isn’t easy to maintain full attention for several hours. There are too many distractions to the professor having the student’s full, undivided attention.

Do we ever treat God that way? Our jobs, relationships, and worries are all aspects of our lives that try to take center stage, and we vaguely hear God when He wants our full, undivided attention.  Matthew 6:33 tells us that our attention should be on God first and foremost. “Seek the kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need” (Matthew 6:33)

As with everything in life, we only have to look to the source of all wisdom, truth, and goodness: Jesus. Jesus was present in all that He did. Can you imagine Jesus sitting down with you at a meal and constantly looking out the window or asking you to repeat what you said, distracted and distant as if wishing He was somewhere else? No. When He healed someone, He looked into their eyes and comforted their heart. When He left to be alone with God, He listened thoroughly to His Father’s guiding voice. And on the eve of His crucifixion, knowing full well that He would be tortured and killed the next day, He remained perfectly present to His disciples, to His friends. He ate with them. He prayed with them. He washed their feet in a spirit of humility and love. Jesus lived presently and gave all of His attention to His mission.

The best way to ensure that God always has our full, undivided attention is by staying connected with and focused on Him throughout the day. With all our distractions, staying connected to Christ takes intentionality and commitment.

To stay connected, we need to have time with God every day. With our busy schedules, having dedicated time each day to sit down, rid yourself of distractions, and be with the Lord becomes necessary. While quiet time is a good thing, prayer is also important. Corrie Ten Boom said, “Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.”

God deserves that when we spend time with Him, we shut everything else out and focus entirely on Him. The living God doesn’t want just some of us when we spend time with Him; He wants all of us. Just like we need full attention in a heart-to-heart conversation, God wants the same from us.

Discussion Questions:

1. What types of things are competing with God for your attention? 
2. How can we better give our time and attention to God this week? 

“Go with the slow.” –  Unknown

Most of us understand that if we want to grow spiritually, we need to slow down occasionally. But that always seems to be a challenge. There seems to be something about being forced to slow down that makes us want to run faster than we were before. It probably stems from when an obstacle hits us, and we decide to summon up our will to power through. For some inexplicable reason, slowing down seems impractical and uncomfortable.

However, when we have no choice but to slow down, we realize it may actually be a good thing. We understand that slowing down helps us eliminate all the needless distractions that have been adding stress but have done nothing to help us be productive with important things. We begin to realize that we did not know we were being distracted because we were unaware of what we are being distracted from. When we slow down, we have the time to reevaluate what truly matters, seeking, first and foremost, the Kingdom of God.

Mark 1:35 says, “Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray.” Simon and his companions went to look for Him and when they found Him, they exclaimed, ‘“Everyone is looking for you.” But Jesus replied, “We must go on to other towns as well, and I will preach to them, too. That is why I came.” So he traveled throughout the region of Galilee, preaching in the synagogues and casting out demons” (Mark 1:36-39).

Jesus is already in great demand because of His healing ministry. Jesus is showcasing His power and His authority to heal people. To cast out demons. To bring the kingdom of God.  And because of that, people came from everywhere to see Him. With a bit of imagination, you could imagine the scene as something like Black Friday, with people going crazy to see Him, get their deal, whatever it might be. They’re coming from everywhere to interact with Jesus. The bottom line is that amidst all this craziness, the Bible says that Jesus pulls away to a solitary place. Moving faster was certainly an option, but Jesus chose the right speed over rushing.

Over and over in the gospels, we see that the writers describe occasions when Jesus takes a break from all claims on His time and energy. Jesus was intentional about remaining present to the Father in Heaven. And so He took time to get away and pray even though people who needed healing and still wanted to hear a word of comfort or inspiration. But repeatedly, Jesus knew that He could not continue to meet those needs without intentionally moving at the right speed in His life.

There are absolute times when we need to rush. If a house catches fire, there is no time to be contemplative; it is a time to accelerate.  But if we’re living at that pace, non-stop, our lives will not be sustainable.  We need to be more like Jesus, who was never too busy to connect with His Father.

Discussion Questions:

1. How do you determine the right speed for your life?
2. If you want God to show you His will, you need to: Slow Down – If you want God to show you the will He has for your life you’re going to have to go at the speed He requires. Agree or disagree and why?

 Christ’s supremacy over all things means that Christians flourishing does not hinge on my adoption or rejection of certain technologies. It hinges on my heart’s focus on the Savior…Whether we buy a seat on a spaceship rendezvous to the moon or stay within the confines of an Amish-like commune, we will find no hope apart from our union to Christ…He frees us from slavery to the technological desires of self-creation and self-determining individualism…Our gadgets and techno-possibilities no longer define us; Christ does. He defines our calling. If we follow his word, we will be protected from being used by our tools.”― Tony Reinke, God, Technology, and the Christian Life.

As Christians living in the digital world, we embrace the benefits technology has brought to life, including the speed and ease of communication and seemingly unlimited information access. There are tremendous benefits and dangers involved in the unwise use of digital technology. God can be honored if we use digital technologies with wisdom and discernment. But we must also acknowledge the negative impacts that digital technology can have on a believer’s mind if they are used unwisely because the heightened level of communication and information is also full of potholes for the Jesus follower.

Technology is dramatically changing our lives year by year.  With instant internet access on (most of) our phones, we have the world under our fingertips. At the same time, we risk limiting the world just to our fingertips. Technology is a gift from God when we use it for human flourishing. But new technology is merely a collection of new tools we invent, share, and use to make things go faster and run more smoothly. Technology makes what we do easier, but it cannot answer our most profound questions. Warren Wiersbe said, “We’re living in the ‘information age,’ but we certainly aren’t living in the ‘age of wisdom.’ Many people who are wizards with their computers seem to be amateurs when it comes to making a success out of their lives. Computers can store data and obey signals, but they can’t give us the ability to use that knowledge wisely. What’s needed today is wisdom.”

When we look at our phones to feel connected, we miss out on the possibilities for real connections. We see this in the example of Jesus himself. In the Bible, we learn several times that Jesus removes himself from everyone else to pray and connect to His Father. This deep connection can balance us, create direction and purpose in our lives, and recharge us for the rest of the day.

But what if Jesus lived in the never offline environment? What if He had a smartphone? Would He be walking in the mountains, checking his Facebook feed first, then His other social media, and then rushing back to His disciples because the day was almost starting without Him? No, He wouldn’t, of course. But this is the risk we run when left to our own devices. Instead of looking for a deep connection, we often fall into the shallow connection of an always-available world. The connection over WiFi is never a substitute for a deep connection with God and others.

Discussion Questions:

1. How should the believer look at the digital age?

“You set the boundaries of the earth, and you made both summer and winter.” – Psalm 74:17

You thought it would never happen. You woke up as you usually do, your mind running through all your tasks and appointments for the day. You start a pot of coffee, walk over to the window to pull open the blinds, and there it is—lots of snow and cold winds. Your outside thermometer says 21 degrees. To a Floridian, it is: Gloomy. Dark. Frigid. Bone-chilling. Frosty. Bitter. Cold. You live in Florida. You aren’t supposed to be shoveling sidewalks and scraping car windows, dealing with runny noses and rescheduling appointments, trying to find some heavier clothing, and wishing you had a four-wheel drive vehicle even though you never needed it before.

But according to the verse in Psalm 74, God made the summer and winter. It wasn’t a mistake. It’s not like God ran out of heat and made up another season at the last minute. No. He created winter for a purpose. The second part of the verse, “you made both summer and winter.” acknowledges God’s role as the creator and governor of the seasons. The changing of the seasons, from the warmth and growth of summer to the cold and dormancy of winter, is attributed to God’s design and purpose. This speaks to the world’s natural order and emphasizes God’s ultimate power over the cycles of nature.

Snow has a way of shutting things down in our area and bringing things to an abrupt halt, canceling all your plans and rearranging your schedule. It could be God’s way of giving us an extra Sabbath—a forced rest from the daily grind, busy schedules, and constant deadlines.

The stillness of winter can be a reminder to pause and reflect on how God’s hand has been leading us, providing for us, and shaping our lives. Our busy lives often prevent us from taking the time to slow down and listen to God. We may fit in a quick devotional reading in the morning or a quick prayer before bedtime, but our minds usually bounce around to the next thing we need to do. When life slows down, and we’re limited to outside activities, it’s only natural to have more time to be still.

Days like this, when everything is closed, and our to-do list is paused, are an opportunity to spend quality time with God. Unforeseen days like this week are certainly an inconvenience, but being stuck at home is a wonderful reminder of the good slowing down does for our minds, our bodies, and our relationship with God. Instead of being bored or wishing the time away, we can use these rare days to seek God more intently and purposefully. What does he want to do in me? What does he want to do through me? What areas of my life need some renovation?

Whether there is snow or sand outside your window today, may you also be challenged to be still, know that He is God, and find rest in Him alone. Put down your agenda, to-do list, and expectations for the day, and be still.

Discussion Questions:

1. How can we use these unusual snow days to reconnect to God?

“But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.” – Deuteronomy 4:29 (ESV).

 Many Christians can remember precisely when they were saved: the date, the time of day, the exact location, the people involved, and the circumstances leading up to the moment when they decided to accept Jesus as their Savior.  Once that decision was made, we wanted more: a deeper relationship and fellowship with Him. And that requires pursuing God.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul said he had a desire to pursue only one thing:  “I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us” (Philippians 3:12-14).

When you pursue God, you are chasing after Him to learn more about Him and His way of living life. It is like a father playing hide-and-seek with his young children. He doesn’t want to show his superior ability to hide from them. He wants to be found. It’s easy for His children to see him because He makes it easy. One of the best examples of how to pursue God is Joshua. We read about his determination to know God and His ways in Exodus chapter 33.

“It was Moses’ practice to take the Tent of Meeting and set it up some distance from the camp. Everyone who wanted to make a request of the LORD would go to the Tent of Meeting outside the camp.….Inside the Tent of Meeting, the LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Afterward Moses would return to the camp, but the young man who assisted him, Joshua son of Nun, would remain behind in the Tent of Meeting” (Exodus 33:7, 11).

Joshua so desired to know God and to learn how He talked to Moses that Joshua stayed in the tent of meeting whenever it was set up. He stayed so that he would always be there whenever God would talk to Moses. Joshua put God first place in his life. His number one priority was learning about God. We should pursue God the same way as Joshua.

Pursuing God takes intentionality. When you pursue, you are chasing after something intending to overtake it. David said this in Psalm 63:1, “O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water.”

Discussion Questions:

1. How do you pursue God on a daily basis?

“More important than the junk in our homes, what about the junk in our lives?” – unknown.

Everyone has a kitchen junk drawer, which is a jumbled tangle of half-empty lip balm, pencil stubs and mysterious keys, empty pens, old batteries, and any number of things we find expedient to put in a catch-all drawer. The item is forgotten once in the junk drawer until you cannot close the drawer. That is when it is time to dump the contents of the drawer on the counter and sort through all the items to determine what stays, what goes, and what needs to be put somewhere else.

Most of us have a spiritual junk drawer as well. It is a mix of “Christian” stuff we have collected throughout our spiritual life. Spiritual clutter can be defined as thoughts and worries that consume time and energy and can prevent us from living intentionally and spiritually. It can also include unconfessed sins, bitterness, unforgiveness, expectations, grief, faltering relationships, theology questions, etc. There are always more things we should be concerned about, give attention to, and make room for — somehow. Before long, we find our lives full of clutter.

The problem is when our spiritual junk drawer gets so full, there is no room for Jesus anymore. One place that can quickly become cluttered and fall into disrepair is the human heart. No one else can see these things that clutter our hearts. In many cases, we might not even know that they are affecting us, but the stuff in our junk drawer can take up precious real estate in the part of ourselves where God Himself dwells.

To declutter your heart, begin by taking inventory of what you have allowed to enter this precious space. A first step might be looking at how you spend your time and whether or not it adequately reflects what is most important to you. Like an examination of conscience, this is an opportunity to check in with yourself honestly and where you are.

Have we cleared the clutter to make room to read the Bible, meditate on it, listen to what it says to us, and act on it? Is there room in our budgets for ministries and missions?

Do we clear the clutter to make room in our hearts for Jesus to come in and live? Are our lives lived so that others can see evidence of Christ’s Spirit living in us? You know, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control.

In the process, we rediscover the soul-satisfying simplicity of a God who refuses to fill our lives with junk but instead offers grace upon grace.

 Discussion Questions:

1. What areas of your life feel most cluttered right now?
2. How can you apply the practice of decluttering to your spiritual life?
3. What practical steps can you take to declutter your environment and mindset this week? 

“That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” –  Steve Jobs.

Simplifying your life means trying to eliminate those things that steal your time, cause stress, and block you from focusing on what is most important in your life. Typically, the more complicated your life is, the more you tend to be pulled in different directions. How can we simplify life and evaluate our priorities?

We know we need to simplify, but everything seems equally important, and we’re not sure what to let go of and what to keep. If we keep too much, we overextend ourselves. In Matthew 11:30, Jesus says, “For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” Following Jesus may involve challenges, but His path is not burdensome because He is with you and provides support, making the load easier to bear. But it is hard to lay it all down and carry only the light burden and easy yoke Jesus talked about when we’ve already taken on more than we can carry.

In Luke 10:39-40, we read the story about Martha and Mary. Martha welcomed Jesus into her home, but then she got “distracted by the big dinner” while her sister Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he taught.”

Imagine for a moment that Jesus is speaking to each of us rather than Martha when He tells us, “You are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about….” (Luke 10:41-42). It is easy to get wrapped up in the details of life, and we are distracted from the one thing that helps us simplify life.

Only one thing is necessary: Jesus. When we make Jesus our number one priority, He’ll show us what to do and what to let go of. We’ll understand our priorities better when His Holy Spirit leads us. We may not be able to get through everything on our to-do list each day, but we can still focus on one of the most important things: Jesus. We can let go of what we couldn’t get done because we can trust Jesus was leading us.

When Jesus becomes our first concern, we can handle challenges with more grace. Jesus renews our peace, gives us wisdom for our next right thing, and enables us to navigate our priorities step by step.

Simplifying life begins with changing our priorities. This spiritual discipline takes time to implement and diligence to maintain. The reason for de-cluttering is the reward of freeing up time and mental space to pursue God in earnest.

Discussion Questions:

1. What does simplifying your life look like to you? What are some specific areas of your life where you could simplify? (Encourage personal reflection and identify areas for change.)
2. What are the benefits of simplifying your life, both practically and spiritually?

“This is what I told them: ‘Obey me, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Do everything as I say, and all will be well!” – Jeremiah 7:23.

Have you ever had your agenda collide with someone else’s agenda? As a teenager, has your agenda ever collided with your parents’ agenda for the weekend? You plan one thing, but they plan something else for you. As a spouse, has your agenda for the money ever collided with your spouse’s agenda for the money? At work, does your agenda clash with the agenda of others on how to move the business forward? Somewhere in some season, there will be a clash of agendas. Fortunately, these conflicting agendas can be worked out to everyone’s satisfaction with some compromise.

We have the choice every day to set our agendas, but have we stopped to consider what God wants us to do with our agenda? How often do we pray that God guides our steps and aligns our desires with His greater purpose? Do we pray that His agenda takes precedence over our plans and grants us the wisdom to discern His will in every situation? Are we willing to surrender our ambitions and embrace the path He laid out for us, even if it differs from what we imagined? We can only pick up God’s agenda when we choose to lay down our agenda.   

God is constantly revealing His agenda to you as you journey with Him. On life’s long path, you will experience many things. You will experience relationships (good and bad), successes and failures, blessings and trials, mountain tops and valleys. You will work, have friends, be offended, and offend others. You will make good, bad, and maybe even ugly decisions. As you travel through life, God will reveal some things to you along the way that will help you understand His agenda for your life and help you make adjustments to your life that will line you up more and more into the center of His will for your life.

There were many demands and expectations upon Jesus, but His focus was always to please the Father.  His agenda wasn’t built around pleasing Himself or others. He was about God’s agenda and not His own: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work” (John 4:34). Jesus says in John 5:19, “…I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.” Jesus only did what the Father did, and so should we.

When we choose to lay our agenda for His agenda, we get to build His kingdom here on Earth. Our goal is to be like Jesus and leave room for His agenda. God is always on the move, even when we don’t see it (John 5:17). He has an agenda for busy and mundane days. All we have to do is choose His agenda over our own.

Discussion Questions:

1. What do you need to add or take away from your agenda to pursue His agenda? 
2. What is the difference between seeking the “plans” God may have for us and simply seeking Him?
3. What could be done to ensure you seek God’s agenda this year?

“The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little. You may not make an end of them at once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you.” – Deuteronomy 7:22.

For most of us, growth and development is never happening fast enough. Whether it is our personal growth, someone else’s, or the growth of a group we’re a part of, it can be frustrating when it seems to be going slowly. Somehow, we always assume that the process should move along more quickly than it does. The frustration and discouragement grow when what you want to happen stalls ultimately. We want a breakthrough, a miracle, or for God to work quickly.

The reality is that God is not in a hurry. He doesn’t feel the same pressure we feel to get things done by our timetable. Unlike us, God seems to be perfectly at peace with allowing things to progress gradually and in increments.

When we think things are too slow, we must step back and remember that while accepting Jesus as your Savior took a few moments, our transformation to be more Christlike will take a lifetime. In other words, to become the person God intends for you to become and realize your potential in Jesus fully will involve a gradual process. Philippians 1:6 says, “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

Deuteronomy 7:22 explains God’s strategy for helping the Israelites take possession of the Promised Land. That phrase in verse 22 is key: “little by little.” How would God give them the Promised Land? Not all at once in “one fell swoop,” but “little by little.”  If the land were cleared too quickly, wild animals would multiply and create new problems for the Israelites. This gradual approach ensured that the Israelites could settle the land securely, managing it as they went rather than being overwhelmed by rapid changes. God’s plan involved defeating the enemies and maintaining the land’s stability and sustainability for His people. This reveals a spiritual principle: that God often works — not only in Israel but in our lives too — “little by little.”

Sometimes, God may act quickly, and we experience that breakthrough, and God moves quickly, but more often than not, He works little by little. The good news is that God’s timing is perfect. Even when it feels slow to us, He’s moving in ways we can’t see. Maybe you’re waiting for a breakthrough in your marriage, finances, health, or spiritual life. You might feel like you’ve been wandering in the wilderness like the Israelites for a while now. But know this—God is faithful and working on your behalf, even when you can’t see it. He’s shaping your story, refining your faith, and preparing you for something greater.

The Lord changes us a little at a time.

Discussion Questions:

1. How can we learn to lean into the process and trust God’s timing? 
2. What does “little by little” mean to our spiritual growth this week?