Church Volume One: An 8 Day Devotional By Jesus CultureSample

Anticipation  -  Katie Torwalt

Then Joshua said to the people “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you”.

I don’t think I could ever really imagine the level of anticipation that the Israelites must have felt in that moment. They had witnessed miracle, after miracle, after miracle as Moses led them out of Egypt and through the Red Sea. They also had been in the desert for forty years just waiting to cross the Jordan river, and finally get into the land that God had promised them. The crazy part is that once God miraculously dried up the Jordan river, they still had to go to war for that promised land. 

I always wished that God’s promises for my life had a little more instant magic in them, but instead He often shows us His faithfulness through the process of life. When I look back at God’s goodness and faithfulness during past seasons in my life, I’m incredibly grateful for the journey. I know we’ve all had seasons of life where, for whatever reason, God feels distant, but it’s interesting how when you begin to feel God in the middle of a battle, or depression, or even just a mundane season of life, your perspective instantly shifts into expectation and anticipation of what God will do. I’m sure for the Israelites, after all those years of waiting, to finally hear that proclamation from Joshua that “the Lord will do wonders among you” stirred something in their spirits! It didn’t matter what was in front of them, because they had heard the word of God! They knew that He would be with them, and God being with them could only mean victory. The same God that parted the sea, that provided manna in the wilderness, said He would do wonders!  

However, the part of this verse that sticks out to me the most, is actually the first part: “Consecrate yourselves”. It’s so easy to go to church, feel God moving in worship and preaching, hear the message of “tomorrow the Lord will do wonders” and totally skip over our part. I think sometimes God begins to stir something in our spirits because He wants us to be part of what He’s doing, and He wants us to get ourselves ready. More than anything, I want my awareness of His Presence and His voice to constantly be increasing. The more we can hear His voice, and be aware of what He’s doing, the easier it is to have faith and step out in those moments of risk, and then the more we’ll be able to look back to those moments and see God’s continued goodness and faithfulness in our lives. I want to be able to have expectations and anticipate God’s moving in the huge miracle moments, in the hard seasons, and in the steady flow of life.

As we read through this scripture in Joshua today, let's think back on moments in life when we’ve seen God’s faithfulness in our lives, and then ask Him what we can do to continually increase our awareness of His Presence and His voice.