Is 43:19 says ‘See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?’ So often, like the disciples, we don’t perceive what God is doing. To perceive means ‘to see, to observe, to discern, to discover, to have knowledge of, to understand’ and so often, we find it hard to understand what God is saying and doing, usually because we can’t see beyond our own circumstances.
God tells us to see (behold, look out, notice) what He is doing and to take heed (listen up!) to what He is saying. When I watch Thumper the rabbit, his ears are able to swivel independently; he’s always listening out, always alert to sounds. We need to have that same attentiveness to God so that we can hear what He is saying to us.
Paul urges us to fix our attention on God (Col 3:1-4) so that we are not deceived or distracted by what we see (or don’t see.) When Elijah was prophesying that rain would come after three years of drought, this seemed unlikely. He kept sending his servant to look for rain, and six times the same answer came back: ‘There is nothing there.’ (1 Kings 18:43) It would have been easy to give up at that point, but Elijah persevered in prayer and the seventh time the answer was ‘a cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea’ (1 Kings 18:44)
It’s easy for us to be like the servant: ‘There is nothing there. God’s not doing anything. He may have promised to save people and move in power in this valley, but we can’t see anything. There is nothing there.’ If Elijah had listened to the servant, he could have given up, but Elijah was a prophet. He was accustomed to listening for God’s voice. He was not distracted by what the natural eye could or could not see. We have to be able to perceive and listen for what God is doing and we have to hold on in believing prayer and faith until what is invisible finally becomes visible.