Encouragement for Today

June 13, 2025 Sunday Dinner and the God of New Things KIA STEPHENS Lee en español

“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 (KJV)

To some it may have seemed like a simple Sunday-night phone call with my dad, but to me it was a miracle.

We talked mostly about the fish he was cooking for dinner. Knowing his love language is food, I asked him how he was preparing it.

He proudly responded with his thick, Haitian accent, “A little garlic, butter, lemon, salt, pepper, and paprika.”

We briefly chatted before saying our goodbyes. I placed my phone on the kitchen island and thought about all God had done in our relationship.

My parents divorced when I was 3, and for most of my life, my dad struggled with an alcohol addiction. I resented him for his absence in my life. For years my heart remained cold.

I never would have imagined one day my father and I would make small talk about Sunday dinner. This is the moment I recognized God had done a new thing — not just in the relationship between me and my father but in each of us individually.

God is in the business of doing new things. We see this in Isaiah 43:19: “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.”

This verse was written when the Israelites had turned to foreign idols and rejected God. As a result, they were exiled to Babylon for 70 years, but here in this verse, God was saying to them, Do not dwell on your present punishment or your past times of being in power. I am going to do something brand-new.

We know now the ultimate fulfillment of this new thing was the prophesied Redeemer — a King born to a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), whose sole purpose was to save His people through His own death (Isaiah 53). John the Baptist later called Him the Lamb of God who removed the sins of the world (John 1:29).

The Israelites weren’t expecting deliverance to come from a crucified Savior, just as I was not expecting rivers of His living water to transform my dry, desert-like heart. The Hebrew word for “new” in Isaiah 43:19 is chadash, and it can also mean “to renew or repair.” This is exactly what God did between my father and me.

I learned the power of forgiveness and chose to accept the man my father is instead of trying to make him who I want him to be. By God’s grace, my father has turned away from alcohol and learned to lean and depend on God. We both have experienced a new thing only God could do in our relationship. And God is still doing new things in each of our own wastelands.

Even if it seems impossible, He continues to be the God of new things.

Heavenly Father, help me believe that You are able to do new things in my desert places. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

OUR FAVORITE THINGS

Kia shares more about her relationship with her father in her vulnerable book, Overcoming Father Wounds: Exchanging Your Pain for God’s Perfect Love. In this resource, she helps women identify ways they have been impacted by their fathers and offers practical tools to help them forgive and develop a relationship with God as their heavenly Father. If you have experienced father wounds by way of divorce, abandonment, abuse, incarceration, addiction, death, or a physically present but emotionally absent father, this resource will benefit you. You can check it out in the Proverbs 31 bookstore.

ENGAGE

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FOR DEEPER STUDY

2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (ESV).

Where in your life might God be doing a new thing? How does the reality that God does new things in our lives encourage you?

We’d love to hear from you! Share your thoughts in the comments.

© 2025 by Kia Stephens. All rights reserved.

Proverbs 31 Ministries
P.O. Box 3189
Matthews, NC 28106
www.Proverbs31.org