Greetings in the name of the Father, the son, and the Holy Spirit.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” — Proverbs 3:5-6
Imagine standing on a bank where the earth simply ends and the chaos begins. For days, you have been marching toward a promise, fueled by the stories of your ancestors and the hope of a home to call your own. You have survived the desert, endured the heat of the wilderness, and kept your eyes fixed on a horizon that whispered of rest. But as you reach the final boundary, the vision of peace is suddenly swallowed by the deafening roar of a literal flood. This isn’t the scenic, peaceful stream you pictured in your prayers; it is a violent, churning barrier that seems to mock your progress.
This is the moment of the crossing. We often think of progress as a steady climb up a well-lit staircase, but in the real journey of the soul, progress usually looks like a dead end. We find ourselves facing a “Jordan River” at its absolute worst—not a gentle current, but a swollen, debris-filled torrent at “flood stage.” The Bible describes this exact moment for a people who had everything to gain, yet stood paralyzed by what they saw.
Why does the path to our greatest breakthroughs always seem to lead through our greatest impossibilities? Why does the promise of the future often feel like it’s being blocked by a present that makes no sense? We find ourselves asking why a loving God would lead us to the edge only to let the waters rise higher. Today, we explore why the water stays high until we move, and how the struggle at the water’s edge is actually the very thing that prepares us for what lies on the other side.
I. The Tree and the Trap: Knowledge vs. Trust
In our deepest nature, we crave a map. We want to see the end from the beginning, to have the terrain surveyed and the risks mitigated before we commit our hearts. We want the “why,” the “how,” and the “when” before we take a single step toward the water. Often, we treat prayer as a high-level request for information—we pray to know the future so that we can feel safe. We think that if God would just show us the destination, our anxiety would vanish. But there is a subtle, ancient trap in needing to know everything before we act.
If we go back to the very beginning of the Bible, to the dawn of humanity in the Garden, we see that the first temptation was not centered on a simple act of disobedience, but on a specific tree: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The lure offered by the serpent wasn’t just a piece of fruit; it was the intoxicating desire to have total knowledge independent of a relationship with the Creator. The temptation was to “be like God,” knowing everything so that we would no longer have to rely on Him. We wanted the data so we wouldn’t have to trust the Person. This is the original “knowledge trap”—the belief that certainty is better than intimacy.
When we demand to know the future before we obey, we are reaching for that same fruit. We are saying, “If I have the knowledge, I don’t need the faith.” But the Bible reminds us in Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Notice the order: the straight path comes after the refusal to lean on our own understanding.
St. Augustine, a great seeker of truth from centuries ago, famously inverted our modern logic. In our world, the slogan is, “I will believe it when I see it,” or “I will trust once I understand the plan.” But Augustine realized that in the spiritual life, the order is reversed: “In order to know, I believe.” He understood that there are some truths you cannot see from the shore; you can only see them once you are in the current.
Faith is not the absence of intelligence; it is the courage to act on a relationship before you have all the facts. It is the realization that God’s character is more reliable than our own perspective. As it says in Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” If God gave us a detailed, digitized blueprint of every miracle before it happened, we wouldn’t need a heart; we would just need an instruction manual.
Knowledge can puff us up and make us feel in control, but only trust can actually transform who we are. God is not a search engine where we type in our anxieties to get immediate answers; He is a Father who invites us to hold His hand in the dark. The struggle you feel today—the “not knowing,” the “not seeing”—is not a sign that you are lost or that God is silent. It is the classroom where true faith is built. You are being invited to move from the pride of knowledge to the humility of trust.
II. The Rising Tide of Fear
As the people approached the Jordan, the situation didn’t get easier; it grew increasingly intimidating. This is the great paradox of the spiritual journey that many of us find so confusing. We often assume that if we are truly following God’s will, the path will smooth out and the clouds will part. We expect a “green light” from the universe. Yet, for the travelers in the Bible, as they got closer to the fulfillment of a generations-old promise, the obstacles did not shrink—they expanded. Instead of a receding tide, the river grew larger and more terrifying in their eyes with every passing mile.
The Bible explicitly notes a detail that seems almost cruel in its timing: “Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest” (Joshua 3:15). It was at its most “un-crossable,” most lethal state precisely when God told them it was time to move. To any tactical advisor or human eye, this looked like a “stupid plan.” Logic says you wait for the dry season. Logic says you build a bridge or find a shallow ford. But faith is often called to move when logic says to sit still. Not only was the river a raging, brown barrier of chaotic water, but looming just beyond it sat Jericho—a city defined by its “invincible” walls, the highest and strongest in the land. It was an impossibility followed by an absurdity.
We face this same challenge in our own lives. We all have a “flood stage” season. Perhaps for you, it is a mounting debt that seems to grow faster than you can pay it, a breaking relationship that feels like it’s drowning in silence, or an internal fear that refuses to subside. We look at the “rising water” of our circumstances and we feel shaken. Often, the internal fear—the voice that whispers, “You’re going to fail, everyone is watching, and God has abandoned you”—is actually louder than the external roar of the river.
Every step the priests took toward that water was a calculated test of their devotion. They weren’t just walking empty-handed; they were carrying the Ark of the Covenant, the very symbol of God’s presence and holiness. As they carried this weight, the intensity didn’t drop; it ramped up. They walked toward the edge, and the water didn’t move. They got fifty yards away, and the spray was hitting their faces. They got ten feet away, and it was still flooding. Five feet away—nothing changed. One foot away—it looked even worse than when they started because they could now see the true depth of the currents.
Many of us stop a few feet from the edge. We stand on the bank and say, “Lord, I’ll step in once I see the mud. I’ll commit once the way is clear.” We are waiting for the miracle to happen while we are still standing on “dry ground” and staying within our comfort zones. But as it says in 2 Corinthians 5:7, “For we live by faith, not by sight.” God’s timing is masterfully designed to move us past our self-reliance. He allows the “invincible” obstacle to remain standing until the very last second because He is more interested in the person you are becoming than the path you are walking. He wants a people who can look at a flood and see a bridge, not because the water has moved, but because they know who is walking with them. The rising tide isn’t there to stop you; it’s there to prove that your God is bigger than the flood.
III. The Weight of the First Step
Finally, they arrived at the absolute brink. They had prayed their prayers, they had marched their miles, and they had kept their eyes fixed on the Ark of the Covenant. Yet, as they stood at the very lip of the river, nothing—absolutely nothing—had changed. The water was still high, the current was still fierce, and the roar was deafening. There was no more ground to step on. The next move was not onto a solid bridge or into a sturdy boat, but into a strong, cold, rushing current that, by all laws of physics and common sense, should have swept them away to their deaths.
This is the most critical moment in the life of a seeker. It is the gap between the promise and the performance. In Joshua 3:13, the instruction was specific: “And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord—the Lord of all the earth—set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.” Notice that the water didn’t stop when they thought about stepping in. It didn’t stop when they debated the theology of the crossing. It didn’t even stop when they reached the shore.
It was only when their feet actually touched the water—when the hem of their robes got wet and the cold reality of the river soaked into their sandals—that the Jordan gave way. The Bible records that as soon as the priests’ feet touched the water’s edge, the water stopped flowing and “piled up” in a heap a great distance away.
They finally tasted the fruit of faith. In that breathtaking moment of dry ground appearing in the middle of a flood, a realization began to dawn on them. They might have questioned earlier: “Why didn’t You show us a sign? Why did You let us worry all night at the riverbank? Why did You make us walk until the water touched our skin before You acted?” The answer is profound and life-changing: If everything were explained beforehand, where would be the faith that transcends all understanding? As it says in Philippians 4:7, there is a peace that “transcends all understanding,” but you only find it when you move past what you can logically explain.
A miracle is a wonderful event, a spectacular display of power, but it is the struggle at the edge of the river that actually makes us “God’s people.” It wasn’t the dry ground that changed their hearts; it was the prayerful, terrifying walk toward the water’s edge where it seemed impossible. The miracle was for their progress, but the struggle was for their soul.
God didn’t want a people who just followed a map; He wanted a people who trusted His character. That trust is forged exclusively in the “flood stage.” You need that internal strength for the future, because the Promised Land still has giants and walls. If you don’t learn to trust God at the river, you won’t know how to trust Him when you face the walls of Jericho. God knows that without a true faith—believing and trusting before the impossibility—you wouldn’t be ready for the future He has prepared for you. The “wet feet” were the price of a faith that could conquer kingdoms.
Summary: The Beauty of the Edge
The crossing of the Jordan teaches us that the silence of the heavens is not the absence of the Creator. We often find ourselves at the edge of a “flood stage” in our own lives, wondering why the path to a better future is blocked by an overflowing river of doubt, debt, or distress. Why doesn’t the water part while we are still safely tucked away in our camps?
We have seen today that the “flood” is not a mistake or a sign of failure. It is the precise environment needed to build a trust that goes deeper than human logic. If we only moved when the path was clear, we would be followers of maps, not followers of a living God. But when we move while the water is high, we become people of a faith that can withstand any storm.
The Bible captures the essence of this journey in Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” The assurance comes not from the absence of the river, but from the presence of the One who made the river.
The “miracle” of the dry ground was actually the secondary part of the story. The primary transformation happened in the hearts of those who continued to walk toward the roar of the water even when nothing seemed to be changing. They learned that God’s timing is perfect, even when it is “last-second” timing. They discovered that the ground only appears when we are brave enough to get our feet wet.
Whatever impossibility you are facing today, remember that the struggle at the water’s edge is making you stronger for the land that lies ahead. The river is wide, the current is fast, but the Promise-Giver is faithful. Your future is not found in having all the answers, but in trusting the One who holds the future in His hands.
Let’s pray together.
Heavenly Father,
We come before You today standing at the edge of our own rivers. For many of us, the water is at flood stage. The obstacles in front of us look invincible, and the walls of our challenges seem too high to climb. We confess that we often seek the safety of knowledge rather than the beauty of trust. We want the answers before we give You our “yes.”
Lord, give us the courage to step into the water. Strengthen our hearts when the river seems to grow larger and the signs seem to disappear. We hold onto the truth of Isaiah 43:2: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.” Help us to remember that You are the God who piles up the floods and makes a way where there is no way.
May we not fear the struggle, but embrace it as the place where You are making us more like You. We choose to believe so that we may truly know Your heart. We trust that as we take that first step, You will provide the ground beneath our feet.
We pray in the Name of Jesus, Amen.
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” — Isaiah 43:2