When You Haven’t Been This Way Before

“…you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before.”
Joshua 3:4 NIV

You can feel a season changing before you know what to call it. A door closes. Another opens. A relationship deepens, a responsibility shifts, an old desire loses its pull, or Jesus begins to feel less like an idea and more like Someone you want to know. The change may carry grief, relief, excitement, or all three. What unsettles us is not always that something went wrong, but that the old map no longer matches the road ahead. The question then becomes less about “How do I control this?” and more about “How do I recognize where I am being led?”

After forty years of wandering, Joshua stood with Israel at the Jordan. The wilderness lay behind them, an unfamiliar country ahead. The old road had ended, and the new one appeared hidden. Then this instruction moved through the camp. “Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before.” Notice what it did not ask. It did not ask them to understand the journey. It asked them to watch for the ark, the sign of His presence, and follow. That shifts the question from “How do I figure this out?” to “Where is God moving, and what step is opening before me?”

Another promise meets us there. “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you” (Deuteronomy 31:8). We often ask God for a clearer picture of the next season, when He gives us just enough light to recognize and follow His movement and presence. Uncertainty remains, but it no longer means we are alone. Could it be that we are not standing at the edge inventing a future, but learning to trust that the One leading us is present where we have not yet been?

If God is already present in the place ahead, the next question becomes how we will move toward it. Peter, a fisherman who had caught nothing all night, faced something similar. Jesus told him, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4). Nothing in his experience suggested another attempt would matter. Still, he answered, “Because you say so, I will let down the nets” (Luke 5:5). That response does not sound certain. It sounds willing. Faith in an unfamiliar season may look exactly like that.

Could that be why change feels both unsettling and alive at the same time? An old expectation is loosening, while a changed circumstance, a new desire, or a growing awareness of Jesus draws us forward. The next faithful step may not prove that we understand the whole road. It may be the first sign that the life behind us no longer gets the final word. We have not been this way before, but God is already there, and could that be what makes the new road with Him worth following?

Prayer

Jesus, when the road ahead feels unfamiliar, help me notice where You are already moving. Loosen my grip on old expectations, steady my heart, and give me courage to take the next faithful step. Amen.