“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you!”

Stop! Imagine being told this: Tomorrow you will wake up and God will do amazing things through you. Now, consider how you would react to this announcement. What would it mean to you? What can you picture yourself doing? The answer to these questions depends on what is amazing to you. Is it saving the world? Performing some superhuman physical feat? Being a professional athlete? Being recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records? Winning the Nobel Prize? Saving somebody’s life? Inventing the next big thing in the electronics industry? Or are your amazing dreams more down-to-earth? Just making it in life, finishing school, getting that dream job, getting married, having a happy family, becoming successful in business?

Whatever is amazing to you, how would you react if you were told that tomorrow God would do just that in you? Would you have disbelief? Skepticism? Would you say, “What’s the catch? What’s the fine print?” Would your fear of being out of the comfort zone you have found in life keep you from believing and acting upon that belief? Would you say, “Thanks, but no thanks, I’m happy where I am in life”? Or perhaps you have been brought up to believe that everything you get in life you earn by how hard you work; everything that happens to you is the direct fruit of your labor. As a result, you don’t believe anything amazing can happen to you. Life just doesn’t work that way. On the other hand, you could be curious, or interested, or even believe. You could open your arms and say, “Lord I am ready. Use me to do something amazing tomorrow.”

In today’s world words such as amazing, awesome, the best, great, greatest, divine, wonderful, extraordinary, terrific, and countless other words are used so casually and carelessly that their true meaning has been lost. The real meaning has been diluted to the point they mean little now. The dictionary, however, defines amazing in vivid terms: confusing, bewildering, perplexing, filled with wonder, astounding, surprising, astonishing. If you think of amazing in these terms, you would use the word less often. When was the last time you were truly bewildered, perplexed, filled with wonder, or so astonished that you were confused? Can you imagine God doing something this amazing through you?

A truly astonishing, perplexing, and bewildering story is found in the history of the Israelites in approximately 1451 B.C. Joshua, the successor of Moses, said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.” The Israelites’ reaction to this announcement was probably much like yours—a mixture of doubt and fear. What Joshua didn’t tell them was that tomorrow they would wake up and cross a 200-mile-long, 100-foot-wide, 10-foot-deep river to get to the promised land in the middle of flood season. Joshua had been told that the waters in this massive river would come to a complete and utter halt so that the whole nation of Israel could cross this river on dry ground. Yes, on dry land, in the middle of flood season. Have you ever seen a 200-mile-long, 100-foot- wide, 10-foot-deep river just stop flowing? To put this into perspective, have you ever seen even a one-foot-wide, half-foot-deep baby stream just come to a complete stop?

What is as amazing and astounding as the sheer perplexity of a massive river that just stops flowing, is what the Israelites show us. We read that “the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge.” Imagine just for a minute that you are one of these priests, and you are told, “Go ahead, walk into the river. Trust me, the water will just stop flowing!” You would probably reply quickly, “Nice try. You go ahead and drown first!” What the Israelites show us is the most amazing thing—faith. They didn’t wait for the river to stop first, then walk in. They took the first step, trusting in God’s faithfulness and His word, that He would do what He said. And that is the amazing thing, the faith of the Israelites. In all of His mighty power, God didn’t stop the river first and then say, “There you go! Now you can pass through on dry land.” That would have been too easy for the people, just another show of God’s awesome power which they knew He had already. Of course, God’s awesome power is no mundane thing. Indeed, it is amazing! But what’s equally amazing about this historical account is the people’s faith. And faith is what God waits for from you and me. When we have faith, God unleashes the amazing in our lives. The question is: Do you have faith that when you wake up tomorrow, God will do something amazing in your life? He’s waiting for you. Got faith?

(Dr. Diamond Tam is currently a 3rd year resident in ophthalmology at the University of California, San Francisco, where he currently resides with his wife Serena.)