Tomorrow the LORD will do wonders
At the edge of the Jordan
Forty years of wandering come down to a riverbank. The wilderness generation has died in the sand; a new one stands at the Jordan with the promised land lying green across the water, close enough to see and not yet theirs to walk. It is a strange, charged place to stand — the old wandering finished, the new country in plain sight, and a river still between. And Joshua's word to the people on that threshold is not a battle plan. It is not even a map. It is this: sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you. Make yourselves ready, set yourselves apart, because the God who walked you all the way through the wilderness is about to act, and the acting is His. The promise behind it had already been spoken: every place the sole of your foot shall tread, I have given you. The land is gift before it is conquest. So they stand at the edge of everything they have waited for, told not to strategize but to consecrate, because the crossing belongs to the LORD, and tomorrow He will do wonders. The wilderness has delivered them, at last, here — to the brink of the new.
“Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.”
— Joshua, at the Jordan — Joshua 3:5 (WEB)
“Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread on, I have given you, as I spoke to Moses.”
This is disorientation closing toward its threshold, the wilderness ending at the riverbank and the new land in view. The phase has done its long work and now hands you forward. It asks not for strategy but for consecration — to ready your heart at the brink, because the crossing belongs to the LORD, and tomorrow He will do wonders in the country He has already given.
This is where the long disorientation finally brings you: not back to the place you left, and not yet into the place you are going, but to the riverbank between — the wandering behind you, the new land in sight, a crossing still ahead. Thresholds have their own particular ache, because you can see the thing you longed for and cannot yet stand in it. Hear Joshua's word for that place. It is not anxiety and not striving; it is consecration. Sanctify yourself, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders. The work of the threshold is to ready your heart, not to force the river. And notice where the wonders are. They are not behind you in the wilderness you survived; that was the wandering, not the wonder.
The wonders are ahead, across the water, in the land God has already given before a single foot has touched it. Tomorrow is the word that matters. The God who proved faithful through every year of the wandering is not finished. The best of His faithfulness is on the far bank, and the wilderness has carried you all the way to its edge.
The Church at the end of its wilderness stands where Israel stood at the Jordan: the wandering finished, the new country in view, the river still ahead. The word for that moment is not a strategy session but a consecration. Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders. The crossing belongs to the LORD, and the land is gift before it is conquest. Western and global Christianity, carried by a long shaking to the brink of new bearings, are told not to strategize the river but to consecrate the heart. The best of God's faithfulness to His Body is not behind it in what it survived but ahead, across the water, in the country He has already given. Tomorrow the LORD will do wonders in the Church He brought this far.
Thresholds give way; even the riverbank is a place you do not stay. But the faithfulness that walked you through the wandering does not stop at the water's edge. When the wilderness has shaken away all the rest, what cannot be shaken is the LORD who brought you here and goes on ahead: tomorrow He will do wonders.
- Where has my wilderness brought me to a threshold I can see across but not yet enter?
- Am I trying to force the crossing, or readying my heart as Joshua told the people to?
- Do I expect the wonders behind me in what I survived, or ahead, in the land He has already given?
Lord, the long wandering has carried me to the riverbank, the new land in sight and the water still between. I will not force the crossing. I sanctify my heart and wait, for tomorrow You will do wonders. Lead me across into the country You have already given. Amen.