WET FEET BEFORE DRY LAND

Why Faith Doesn't Wait for Dry Ground

John Ortberg tells the story of the night he tried walking on water.

Well, not literally. But he writes about the first time he went waterskiing. The boat was fast, the rope was tight, and his instructor kept yelling one piece of advice: "If you start to fall, let go of the rope."

That seemed counterintuitive. The rope was his lifeline. It was the only thing between him and total disaster. Why on earth would you let go?

Then he fell. And in that split second of panic, he held on tighter. The rope he thought was saving him dragged him through the water at thirty miles an hour, tumbling him like a rag doll until he finally released his grip.

The lesson? What you refuse to let go of will drag you under.

Ortberg would later write that if you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat. And that is exactly the decision facing the people of Israel in Joshua chapter 3. They are standing at the edge of the Jordan River, staring at an impossible obstacle, and God is asking them to do something that makes no earthly sense.

He is asking them to step in.

The setup matters. In Joshua 1, God gave Joshua the ultimate success formula for the impossible mission ahead: meditate on My Word, obey everything in it, and know that I will be with you wherever you go. In Joshua 2, God used a Canaanite prostitute named Rahab to advance His plan, proving that His promises reach everyone who puts their faith in Him. Now in Joshua 3, it is time to move. Not time to talk about moving. Not time to plan to move. Time to actually, physically, irreversibly move.

Because faith is not just about knowing what God promises or seeing who God uses. Faith is about getting your feet wet when God says go.

Perfect Conditions Are Not Required

Joshua 3 opens with this: "Early in the morning Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over."

They camped at the Jordan for three days. And the natural question is: what were they doing during those three days? Were they hoping the water level would drop? Were they looking for a shallow crossing? Were they building boats?

No. Joshua 3:5 tells us exactly what they were doing: "Joshua told the people, 'Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.'"

That word "consecrate" means to set yourself apart, to purify yourself for God's purposes. The three-day waiting period was not about logistics. It was about spiritual preparation. They were preparing their hearts, not their equipment. They were preparing to obey. Not preparing to understand. Not waiting for perfect conditions. Preparing to obey.

There is a massive difference between strategic waiting and faithless procrastination.

Strategic waiting looks like waiting with consecration, with instruction, with preparation for movement. Faithless procrastination looks like waiting for your fear to disappear, waiting for conditions to be perfected, waiting for someone else to go first, waiting for absolute certainty.

Joshua waited three days with wet-feet-ready obedience. Some of us have been waiting three years with dry-feet-comfortable excuses.

And here is the part that stings a little. Notice what the officers told the people in verse 3: "When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it." The command was not "if." It was "when." When you see the ark moving, you move. The time for discussion was over. The season of preparation was complete. The moment had come for deliberate action.

Verse 4 adds something worth sitting with: "Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before." God was taking them somewhere they had never been. And the only way to get there was to move when God said move.

But perhaps the most important verse in this section is verse 5. Look at the sequence: "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you." Consecration comes before demonstration. God did not say, "Watch Me do something amazing and then get right with Me." He said, "Get right with Me because I am about to do something amazing."

You want to see God move powerfully in your life? Then stop expecting a miraculous demonstration with zero commitment to consecration. Deal with that thing you have been tolerating. Stop that pattern you have been excusing. It may be that God is about to do amazing things. But He is not going to do them through people who will not take their relationship with Him seriously.

Walking Comes Before the Way Is Cleared

Now we come to the heart of the passage. The wet feet moment.

Verse 8: "Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: 'When you reach the edge of the Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river.'"

Notice who goes first. Not the soldiers. Not the strongest swimmers. Not the most expendable members of society. The priests. And not just the priests, but the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant, the most sacred object in all of Israel, the very symbol of God's presence among His people.

God was saying something profound: "I am not asking you to go anywhere I am not already willing to go. I am not calling you into any water My presence will not enter first."

When leaders step into impossible situations carrying God's presence, they create pathways for everyone else. Your obedience does not just affect you. When you get your feet wet, it creates dry ground for the people behind you. Your children are watching. Your coworkers are watching. Your friends are watching. And they are either going to remember your fears or they are going to remember your footsteps.

Now look at verse 13: "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."

Did you catch that? As soon as. Not before. Not after they tested the water temperature. Not when they felt comfortable. As soon as their feet touched the water.

Verses 15 and 16 make it even more explicit: "Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. 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."

The sequence is non-negotiable. Feet touch water. Then water stops flowing. Then ground becomes dry. Then everyone crosses. God did not part the water and say, "Now walk across the dry ground." He said, "Start walking and I will part it." The faith-step precedes the miracle-manifestation. The priests had to commit to entering a flooding river before seeing any evidence it would work. They had to step toward impossibility before impossibility moved.

The Middle of Impossibility Becomes Holy Ground

And then there is verse 17: "The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground."

They stood in the middle. Not on the safe side. Not on the destination side. In the middle of what used to be impossible. And that middle place became the holiest ground in all of Israel that day.

Here is something that might change the way you see your current season: the middle of your impossibility is where God wants to meet you. Not on the comfortable side. Not on the "I made it" side. Right there in the thick of it, where you are fully committed and totally dependent on Him.

Most of us spend all our energy thinking about how to get through the hard thing. We pray about getting through it, we look forward to getting through it, we count down the days until we are through it. But we spend almost no time thinking about how we go through it. And that matters. How you navigate the trouble you currently face matters, because you are telling a story. You are writing a story. You are sending a message to everyone watching about what you believe to be true about God.

In Joshua 4, God connects this moment to the Red Sea crossing forty years earlier. He is saying, "I am the same God who delivered your parents when Pharaoh's army was behind them and impossible water was in front of them. What I did for them, I will do for you. The pattern has not changed. The God has not changed."

The great British preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones once described what he called "the position of utter hopelessness." He observed that God always seems to work most powerfully when His people are right up against it, so far against it that they are hopeless and helpless. The ones God has used to bring about the greatest works of faith have always known a state of utter desperation.

The middle is where your faith becomes visible. Where your obedience becomes undeniable. Where your testimony becomes powerful. Where your God becomes undeniable to everyone watching.

But you will never get to the middle with dry feet.

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So Here Is the Question

Why are your feet still dry?

You claim to believe God, love God, trust God. You walk through all the motions of someone interested in living your life for Him. So why are your feet still dry?

Maybe you have been waiting for the fear to go away before you step in. It will not. The priests were not fearless. They were obedient. Maybe you have been waiting for the conditions to be perfected. They will not. The Jordan was at flood stage. Maybe you have been waiting for God to prove Himself before you move. He will not. Not because He cannot, but because that is not how faith works. The step comes first. The miracle follows.

Here is what it comes down to. You will either live in a way that is gratefully remembered or painfully regretted. That is your choice. And it starts with your next step.

So wherever your Jordan is, whatever that impossible, terrifying, faith-requiring thing is that God has been asking you to step into, hear this clearly: your next step may require wet feet. Faith does not wait for dry ground.

Get out of the boat. Step off the shore. Get your feet wet.

Because the God who parted the Red Sea and stopped the Jordan is the same God standing on the other side of your impossibility, saying, "I have been waiting for you to move."