Deja Vu?

What is going on in Cairo looks familiar. Ordinary people are protesting, and the military backed security forces are acting with considerable violence, as both sides did earlier this year. Has anything changed? This is deja vu!
Our present economic and political struggles are also similar, in very many ways, with previous problems. While we often imagine that 'this is new', the underlying features are pretty familiar. Deja vu again!
As one cynic wrote, 'There is nothing new under the sun' (Ecclesiastes 1.9), so that everything that humans do is merely a repeat performance of a previous tragedy.
However, there is another way of seeing the events of history. It is not all deja vu
The prophet Isaiah, writing to demoralised and dispirited Jewish exiles in Babylon, declares, as the mouthpiece of the Lord, ' “But forget all that—it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. 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.' (Isaiah 43.18-19)
The something new was to be the rescue of God's people from Babylon through the active agency of a foreign power - the Persians. The return from exile was granted by the new 'king on the block', Cyrus the Mede, in 537BC, after the fall of Babylon.
As we approach Christmas, we can recall that the Lord did something new in the birth of Jesus. Another something new can be seen in the ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. The growth of the Church is another something new.
So let us be on the lookout today for other acts of God that are something new, and trust Him with the details of today.
Best wishes,
Richard