Faith Moves First

How God calls us to step out before we can see the full path

There is a moment before every miracle. A quiet, often terrifying pause between the word of God and the evidence of it — a space that can only be crossed one way. Not by strategy. Not by certainty. Not by the accumulation of enough resources or enough confidence in our own ability. It is crossed by faith, and faith alone.

God does not ask us to leap after everything is guaranteed. He asks us to step forward because He has guaranteed it. That is the tension at the heart of the Christian life — and it is one of the most beautiful invitations in all of Scripture.

The Water Does Not Part Until Your Feet Are Wet

The story of Israel’s crossing of the Jordan River in Joshua 3 is one of the most striking pictures of this principle in the entire Bible. The Israelites stood at the bank of a river swollen with floodwater, carrying the Ark of the Covenant, with no visible way across. God’s instruction through Joshua was clear but audacious: the priests were to step into the water first.

“Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing.” — Joshua 3:15–16 NIV

Notice the sequence. The water did not part while they stood on the shore debating it. It did not part while they prayed for clearer conditions or waited for a better season. It parted the moment their feet touched the water. The miracle was contingent on the movement. God was not waiting for better circumstances — He was waiting for faith.

This is not an isolated moment in Scripture. It is a pattern.

Small Steps, Sovereign God

We often disqualify ourselves from stepping out because what we have to offer seems too small. The task looks too large. The resources feel too thin. The gap between where we are and where God is calling us to seems impossible to cross.

But the Word speaks directly to this fear:

“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.” — Zechariah 4:10 NLT

The context of this verse is significant. The prophet Zechariah spoke it to Zerubbabel, the governor tasked with rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem after the exile — a monumental work that had stalled, that the people had largely given up on, that seemed laughably inadequate given the grandeur of what once stood. Zerubbabel had only a small foundation laid. A remnant of a people. Modest tools. And yet God said: begin. He did not say “wait until you have enough.” He said “I rejoice to see the work start.”

God is not moved by our finished products. He is moved by our first steps.

Not in Our Strength, But His

The essential shift that faith requires is a fundamental reorientation of trust. We are not stepping out because we believe in our own ability to hold things together. We are stepping out because we believe in His.

The Apostle Paul understood this deeply. Writing from a Roman prison — about as stripped of human resources as a person could be — he testified:

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” — Philippians 4:13 NKJV

This verse is often quoted as motivation, but read in context it is something far more profound: it is a declaration of utter dependence. Paul had learned — through shipwreck and imprisonment, through abundance and hunger — that his own strength was not the variable. Christ’s was. That changed everything.

Faith is not the courage to try harder. Faith is the surrender that says: I cannot, but He can, and so I will move.

Abraham Walked Without a Map

Perhaps no figure in Scripture embodies this principle more completely than Abraham. When God called him to leave Ur for a land he would be shown, there was no itinerary provided. No map. No timeline. No guarantee of comfort along the way.

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” — Hebrews 11:8 ESV

Not knowing where he was going. That phrase should stop us in our tracks. We tend to think of faith as the thing we exercise once we understand the destination. Abraham teaches us that faith is often what moves us before the destination is revealed. The direction came one step at a time — and only to someone who was already walking.

God rarely shows us the whole staircase. He illuminates the next step.

Why God Works This Way

One might ask: why would a gracious God require the step before the miracle? Why not show us the parted water, the open road, the guaranteed outcome — and then invite us to walk?

The answer is worth sitting with. When we step out in faith and watch God move, something irreplaceable happens in us. We learn, at the level of lived experience, that He is faithful. Not as a theological proposition, but as a personal history. Each step of faith becomes a stone of remembrance — evidence we carry forward into the next uncertain season.

There is also this: when we move in our own strength, we carry the weight of the outcome. When we move in faith, we carry only obedience — and leave the outcome to Him. That is not passivity. It is the deepest form of courage, and the lightest kind of yoke.

“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 NIV

The Invitation Before You

You may be standing at a river right now. Something God has spoken over you, a calling, a reconciliation, a step of obedience, a dream quietly laid on your heart — and the waters have not yet parted. The conditions do not look right. Your strength does not feel sufficient. The beginning, if you made it, would look embarrassingly small.

Step in anyway.

God does not rejoice in your perfection. He rejoices in your beginning. He is not waiting for you to be capable enough — He is waiting for you to trust Him enough. The miracle is on the other side of the step, not before it.

Faith moves first. And when it does, it discovers that the ground was always there.

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” — Hebrews 11:1 NIV