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See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:19

Most of us are creatures of habit and we are resistant to change. It is easy to tread the well-worn path and do what we’ve always done. Patterns, habits, and routines feel familiar and safe, and comfort us. Even if the outcome is not that great, we tend to like it because at least we know what to expect. 

Sometimes even if we are promised something better, it is hard to let go of the familiar. The prospect of something better can be hard to imagine. But what if God wants to do “a new thing” in you? That’s why dreaming with God is so important. He implants ideas and visions into our hearts so we can start to visualise it in our spirit. Only God can make something out of nothing; after all, He called the whole world into existence. “By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.” (Hebrews 11:3) It’s who He is, it is in His nature to create.

I recently helped to run a Disordered Eating Support Group at Island ECC. It was a vision that God had placed on my heart since 2013, and the last four years had been a time of preparation. My own past experience was the catalyst but God also put a desire in me to walk alongside others.

My healing journey was a long step-by-step process. I had often wished that God would just do it in an instant and I believed He could do it. But I knew there was a reason it had to be this way: I had to do the hard work of addressing my pain, give up old patterns of control and comfort, deal with confronting the feelings that I was too afraid to feel, and learn a new way of seeking solace in God instead of resorting to old patterns for relief.

God meted out to me the steps toward wholeness and freedom, and the process gave me time to walk faithfully, learn deeply, process thoroughly, and heal completely. I was blessed to have the right people around me who could counsel me in the journey, and my sense of obligation to them made me press on when I wanted to give up. I am so glad that I did not and I wish to encourage others to pursue God for the abundant life that cost us Jesus’ death on the Cross.

Let us embrace the process of change by:

• Thanking God for being good and wanting to journey with us;
• Asking God to help us, guide and inspire us to move towards wholeness and holiness; and prepare the people that can journey with us.