Anxiety and regret are said to be the enemies of happiness. Anxiety, or fear about the future, and regret for mistakes of the past both take our focus out of the present. The past is gone. The future isn't here yet. The present is all we really have.

So why fret over what doesn't exist? Good question. I am prone to both anxiety and regret, and know too well that worry over these things does nothing but evaporate present happiness.

"Remember not the events of the past, the things long ago consider not," the prophet Isaiah tells us in today's first reading. "See, I am doing something new." It would seem that God doesn't want us to dwell on our mistakes and failures of the past, but to pay attention to what God is doing now.

"Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" Isaiah continues. "In the desert I make a way; in the wasteland, rivers."

This is a wonderful message for those of us who feel trapped in worry and fear. God is not interested in punishing us for our misguided choices in the past. God is out to make something new and wonderful, now.

"Your sins I remember no more," the passage concludes. If God doesn't remember our mistakes, why should we rehash them in our minds? If God doesn't punish us, why should we punish ourselves?

Maybe, when I am inclined to beat myself up over a failure at work or in my family, I can instead look for what God is doing now - what opportunities for change and growth are presenting themselves? Where has a spring of water emerged in a place that previously seemed dry and deserted?

We are experiencing a time of unprecedented economic anxiety, and maybe some regret for not being better prepared for this downturn. Each day seems to bring news of mass layoffs, bankruptcies and foreclosures. This kind of news sparks fear. Worrying about things we cannot control will only rob us of contentment now.

Isaiah's prophecy is timely for our lives and society today: Remember not the events of the past. If we open our eyes, ears and hearts to what God is doing, now, we will see something new - something we didn't expect.

Today's message tells me that God does not stop working even when I stop believing. When I am lost in anxiety or regret, God is still active. God is supremely focused on the present, calling us out of the past and the future to see and experience something wonderful and new. God is doing something new in each of our lives, and God is doing something new in our society and our world.

The only question is, "Do you not perceive it?"

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.