Come to rest with your hands open and palms facing upward.
A gesture of release and readiness.
Breathe in slowly.
And as you exhale,
Imagine setting something down,
Just for now.
You can pick it back up later if you need to.
But for these next few moments,
Let your hands stay open and empty.
Open hands receive what closed fists cannot.
Isaiah 43 verse 19 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.
I am doing a new thing.
Do you perceive it?
This word from Isaiah comes in the middle of a passage where God tells the people to stop dwelling on the former things.
Not because the past doesn't matter.
Not because what they've been through wasn't real.
But because something new is happening.
And if they're only looking backward,
They'll miss it.
Spring is the season that asks us to let go of what the winter was.
Even the ways we adapt to survive it,
So that we can receive what is emerging now.
There is sometimes a grief in that,
Because we get attached to our former things.
Even difficult seasons shape us,
And releasing them requires trust.
So dear friend,
What is the new thing God is doing in your life right now?
Maybe you can already see it.
Or maybe you can only sense it through a nudge,
A restlessness.
Or maybe a quiet knowing that something is shifting.
So pause and take a moment to reflect.
Where do you sense God doing a new thing in your life?
Now let's pray.
God,
I want to perceive the new thing.
I do.
I don't want to miss what you're doing because I'm still clinging to what was.
But this morning I practiced the hard grace of releasing.
I humbly released the former version of what I thought this season of my life would look like.
I released the disappointments I've been quietly carrying.
The places where I expected something and it didn't come.
Lord,
I open my hands.
And into these hands,
Oh Lord,
I ask you to pour the new thing into it.
Pour in unexpected provision.
Pour in the creative solution.
Pour into my hands the relationship and the direction and the peace that I can't get on my own.
Oh God,
Make a way where I see no way.
Will you bring rivers to the dry places in my soul?
Father,
I choose today to look for what you are doing rather than to mourn what you are not repeating.
Open my eyes,
Open my hands,
And open my heart to this season of spring,
A season that you are building inside of me.
Amen.
Beloved,
Receive this closing blessing.
Keep your hands open today.
God is doing a new thing.
And it is already springing forth.
You are not in a dead season.
You are in a threshold.
Receive what is coming.
Amen.
