“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.”
Isaiah 43:19 (ESV)
This is a verse people put on mugs, and in doing so they usually strip out the part that gives it its force. The promise is not that something pleasant is coming. It is that a road is being built through terrain where roads do not exist, and water is showing up in a place defined by its absence. You only need this verse if you are somewhere dry.
Notice also the question tucked into the middle. God does not say the new thing is on its way. He says it is springing forth already, present tense, and then asks whether the people can see it. The implication is uncomfortable and freeing at once: the work may already be underway in a form you have not recognised, because you have been watching for it to arrive in the shape you expected.
That is often how it goes. We pray for the door to open and miss the fact that a path has been quietly cut in another direction entirely, and we call it nothing happening because it is not the thing we asked for.
What This Verse Means
Isaiah 43 speaks to a people in exile, or on the edge of it, cut off from Jerusalem and living under Babylonian power. They had every reason to conclude that God had finished with them. The chapter opens with him insisting otherwise, calling them by name, promising to be with them through water and fire, and declaring that he will spend nations to bring them home.
The verses immediately before this one are the key to reading it properly. God recalls the exodus, the way he made a path through the sea and drew out chariot and horse. Then, remarkably, he says: do not remember the former things. He points at his own most famous rescue and tells them to stop looking backward at it. Not because it did not happen, but because a people who define God’s help by the last shape it took will not recognise the next one.
The word behind “springs forth” is the language of a plant breaking the surface, which is a deliberate choice. Growth of that kind is invisible for a long stretch and then suddenly obvious, and the invisible stretch is not a delay. It is the work. Meanwhile the pairing of wilderness and desert would have carried a specific weight for the original hearers: those were the places you crossed to get home, and the places you did not survive without provision. God is not promising to remove the wilderness. He is promising to make it passable.
The Verse in Other Translations
NIV: “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.” The present continuous phrasing, “I am making,” keeps the emphasis on work currently in progress rather than a promise held in reserve.
KJV: “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.” The older rendering leans on the future tense, which reads more as a pledge and less as a report from the middle of the process.
NLT: “For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.” The added exclamation, “I have already begun,” makes explicit what the Hebrew implies, that the starting gun has gone off.
How to Live This Out Today
Look for the path rather than the exit. The verse promises a way through the wilderness, not a helicopter out of it. If you have been praying only for removal, ask instead what provision would make the next mile walkable, and then watch for that.
Name what you are still measuring by. God told exiles to stop defining rescue by the exodus. Write down the specific outcome you have decided must happen for things to count as fixed. Holding it loosely is not lowering your hopes; it is making room to notice something you did not script.
Track the small green shoots. Keep a short list this week of anything that has quietly improved: a conversation that went better than expected, a door that opened slightly, energy you did not have last month. New things spring up before they look like anything, and most people miss them because nobody was writing them down.
Take one step into the dry ground. The Israelites did not get the road first and then walk. Movement usually precedes visible provision. Make the call, send the application, book the appointment, and let God make the way as you go.
Related Verses
- 2 Corinthians 5:17: anyone in Christ is a new creation, with the old having passed away.
- Lamentations 3:22-23: mercies that are new every morning, written by a man watching a city burn.
- Revelation 21:5: the promise that God is making all things new, spoken over the whole creation.
- Philippians 1:6: confidence that the work begun in you will be carried through to completion.
A Prayer Based on Isaiah 43:19
Lord, I have been looking at the same dry ground for a long time.
You say the new thing is already springing up. Give me eyes to see it.
Where I have decided what Your help has to look like, loosen my grip.
Make a way through this, not around it, and give me the courage to walk it.
Provide what I need for the next mile rather than the whole journey.
And keep me from missing what You are doing because it did not arrive the way I planned. Amen.
Questions to Reflect On
- What former thing are you still measuring God’s faithfulness by, and how might that be blinding you to something new?
- Where in your life is the ground currently dry, and what would a way through it, rather than out of it, actually look like?
- What small thing has already improved that you have not paused to notice?
For a prayer to pray alongside this verse, see today’s Prayer for Today on breaking free from what has been holding you back.