Be Still, Advent Day 18: I am Doing A New Thing

“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

“When You Least Expect It”

Sometimes it feels like we’re walking through the wilderness, doesn’t it? The clutter of unanswered prayers, the wasteland of routines that stretch too long, too thin. The tree is up, the lights are twinkling, but the heaviness of what hasn’t happened yet presses quietly on your chest. Will it ever be enough? 

But Advent leans close and whispers: “See, I am doing a new thing!”

New things don’t always come with trumpets and flashing signs. They don’t announce themselves with fanfare. Sometimes they come quietly—like a seed breaking through the dark soil, like a way being made in the wilderness, like streams appearing in the wasteland.

Because that’s how He works, isn’t it? In the background, in the waiting, in the unseen. When you think the story is written, He’s crafting the next chapter. When you’ve resigned yourself to what’s barren, He’s already planted the first drops of life.

This is the season of the unseen miracle. A virgin’s womb, a stable’s rough-hewn manger, a God slipping silently into flesh to meet us right here. His ways are not our ways, and His timing? Oh, it surprises us every time.

So, if today feels like the middle of the wilderness, if you’re still waiting for that answer, that breakthrough, that light at the end of the road—hold on. Lean into His promise. The new thing is already springing up, even if you can’t quite perceive it yet.

“I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

And isn’t that just like Him? To turn wastelands into gardens, to carve rivers where there was only dry ground. To take the quiet, hidden places of your heart and whisper, “Watch, child. I’m already making it new.”

The waiting is hard, yes. But the miracle? It’s closer than you think.