Page 3 - BMTYS - eMagazine - 3rd Edition

“ Whatever...!”

Whatever happens next?
Submitting all in His mighty hands Rev. David Varghese Titus
Anticipation keeps me going. What about you? Do you feel the need
to look forward to what’s ahead—a vacation, a weekend at the beach
or in the mountains, the birth of a child or grandchild, the diploma that
concludes your studies?
Over the past three years, I’ve grappled with two medical emergencies.
Because of the health issues I had to step away from my life’s work of
pastoring. That was a greater loss than I realized at the time. Sometime
later, I could bounce back to normal life.
For months, my thoughts troubled me during the day and my dreams
at night. And then the Lord gave me two verses of Scripture that spoke
clearly to my weary soul. Isaiah 43:18–19 says,
“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 [desert].”
If you visit Israel, there is a place called En Gedi. This is a curious valley
in a barren wilderness. All around this gorge, everything is hot and
desolate. The distant Hebron mountains to the west, made of limestone,
soak up the rain like a reservoir. That water travels a long way through
underground fissures, all the way out to the rocks of En Gedi. There,
water surges like fire hydrants. Splashing waterfalls cascade through
the valley. There are streams in the desert, and it seemed as though the
Lord was saying, “See, this is what I’m talking about.”
That passage in Isaiah—“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the
past. See, I am doing a new thing”—It reminds me of Paul’s words in
Philippians 3:13–14: “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward
what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which
God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
We should always exercise future-oriented therapy—the biblical
practice of knowing our best days are ahead and that even after this
life, we have the certain hope of heaven and the resurrection body.

Bahrain Mar Thoma 3
Yuvajana Sakhyam