I was sitting in the waiting room at rehab when Isaiah 65:17 stopped me:

65:17
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth.”

That is the kind of verse you do not just read. You sit under it.

But the verse becomes even stronger when you back up one line.
God says, “The former troubles are forgotten and hidden from My eyes.”
Not because He is unable to remember. God is not forgetful. He is merciful.

This is not Divine Amnesia.
This is Divine Refusal.

God refuses to keep holding the old thing over the redeemed one.
God refuses to let the past have the final authority.
God refuses to build the new creation on the accusation of the old life.
New Heavens and New Earth..signifies God's Intention to reshape everything.

WOW.

Isaiah 65:17 is not a soft little encouragement verse.

It is thunder.

God says, “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth.”
Not patch.
Not polish.
Not pretend the wreckage did not happen.

Create.
A holy, total, impossible newness only God can speak into being.

And then He says the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.
That is the part that stops me. Because we are - I am - so trained to live chained to what happened — the grief, the failure, the diagnosis, the betrayal, the years we cannot get back, the sins we keep rehearsing like a sentence over our own lives.
I have been deliberately training myself to shorten the time I stay chained....

But God is saying:
That is not even where I am building from.

This new thing is not built on accusation. Or shame. 
Or on the ruins. Or on a rehab of the old.
Or on an improvment of the old.
It is built on NEW.

C'mon! 
WOW.

CONTEXTUALLY - in the prior verses....God is not speaking into a clean, easy, obedient world. The beginning of Isaiah 65 is hard to read through.
It is rebellion.
It is people pushing God aside, chasing their own ways, creating their own trouble, and then living inside the consequences of it.

But then the chapter turns.
I pray it is as I have turned. As I am turning.

Judgment does not get the final word.
Failure does not get the final word.
Slight improvements do not get the final word.

ONLY GOD.
And God Speaks Life.

God begins to speak restoration. He begins to describe healing, rebuilding, joy, safety, fruitful lives, and a people brought back into right relationship with Him.
God speaks of me. Of my life changing.

So when God says, “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth,”  He is not offering a vague religious comfort. 
God is declaring that He can answer rebellion with redemption. 
God can answer ruin with renewal. 
God can take what I broke — and make it holy, whole, and new.

And this includes what I have done,
and whatever I may do in my mind
even today,
to myself.

This verse is not just about someday.
It is also an invitation for today.
TODAY I cut short the mind game of internal fighting.
TODAY I forgive myself and lean in to Him and His ways.
TODAY I stop listening to the old Lisa when God is speaking a new creation.

TODAY I again, truly believe Him when He says He can - and will -  make a world — and a heart — new. Including me and my heart.

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.”

– King James Version (KJV)
Isahah 65:17