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Program D-7623

What can you do when you’re in the midst of a bad day and it feels like it’s going to last forever? Here’s the good news for you today: God is still in control, even on bad days, and these bad days don’t take God by surprise. Whatever causes them, he is there to turn bad days into growth opportunities for you.

Consider this wonderful passage from Isaiah 43:18–19:

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.

Did you ever think that your bad day is a part of the new thing God might be doing for you? In the midst of a bad day, you and I just can’t see God’s hand, can we? But he’s there, and his specialty is turning bad days—wildernesses and wastelands—into new springs of fresh water, life-giving water.

I know—you’re not perceiving it in the midst of your bad day. You just can’t see it, but God’s there, working on your behalf, doing a new thing for you. It will spring up in his time. But meanwhile, your job is to put that bad day behind you.

You see, our tendency is to dwell on the bad days; to re-live them and regret them and resent them. But all that does is make bad days worse. Then a bad day stretches into a bad week or month. Forgetting the former things and not dwelling on the past is guaranteed to get you out of the bad day rut.

God has new things to do for you. Can you trust him? I urge you to turn to this passage from Isaiah 43 on those bad days, and let the Word of God renew you and remind you that he has a new thing for you. He is making a way in your wilderness, even though you can’t see it right now.