Do Not Dwell

Forget the former things;

     do not dwell on the past.

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 43:18-19

Dwell: Reside, live, have one’s home, have one’s residence, be settled, be housed, lodge, stay; abide; linger over, mull over, muse on, brood about, think about, be preoccupied by, be obsessed by, eat one’s heart out over, harp on about, discuss at length, elaborate on, expound on, keep talking about.

It takes time to forget the past, but it takes only a moment to pack up and decide not to dwell there. Remembering and dwelling are two distinctly different things.

There are many reasons we stay stuck in the past. Sometimes we want to remember it. We are afraid if we don’t, we’ll lose all the good that was there. Other times we are traumatized, paralyzed, bound to the past like a prisoner chained to the wall. It can feel like we don’t have the choice to move on.

The good news is that God is always doing a new thing, even before we can perceive one whiff. The good things behind us aren’t the only good things He has planned for us. For the wounded, He binds us up and bids us rise, holding us steady as we learn to walk again. God makes a way in the wilderness of our despair and sends streams gushing through the wasteland of past trauma.  Before we know it, we’re ready to run again.

No, we don’t have to stay in the past, no matter what our reasons. We can remember, and run on with the Lord.

Remember, and run.

I used to live in a mud hut in Africa. It was not romantic, or easy. We had no running water, no electricity, and no grocery store. Our sofa consisted of two large stones I found in a field and an old slab of wood that had once been half a door. We lived with rats the size of small dogs and teeming insects that would crawl out of the walls during rainy seasons like something from a Hitchcock movie. The spiders were larger than my hand and on occasion, a gila monster would drop from the ceiling into the middle of our dining room table (they can be the size of a baby crocodile but look like a lizard.)

I knew before going that I would have to wear skirts at all times in the village with a local wrap called a lesso over the top. So I took a collection of t-shirts and ribbons in various colors. Ribbons in my hair, I battled the mud in the rainy season, the spiders in all seasons, and walked my prize goat home from church on the day my husband won it for me at a tithing auction.

My neighbors both loved me and mocked me. They were fascinated and repelled by me. But I won them over with a drum I named chikwakwara, or thunder. Every Sunday afternoon I would sit under the acacia tree and beat the drum, calling children from miles around to our Bible Club. We’d circle the drum, sitting on the hard-packed earth, ten sets of hands beating out a homemade rhythm to the weekly Bible verse. 

It was beautiful, and it was hard. Joy and sorrow, frustration and exhilaration, life and death, all bound up together like the intricate braids on little Mupa’s head.

That was 25 years ago, and I still remember. But I don’t live there anymore. 

God is constantly doing a new thing, inviting us onward and upward. We’re sojourners on this earth, and we’d do well to remain ready to pull up our tent pegs whenever He says go. We take our memories and all we’ve learned, and we grab His hand for the next adventure. He’s a Master planner, and He has good things in store for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. 

Do you love Him? He loves you. And whether you know Him yet or not, He has good plans for you if you are brave enough to take His hand.

Do not dwell on the former things. Grab His hand this year and go! #newyear Share on X

What do you need to leave in 2023? Jot it down, tuck it away, and lace up your shoes.

Lord, let’s go! Amen.

@audreycfrank