“How have you been?”
“Good. God’s been good.”
We say it all the time. And it is true. But have you noticed how little it tells the other person?
It is a bit like someone telling you they took a great vacation and leaving it there. No beach. No mountain. No story about the flat tire on the way home. You nod and move on.
Details are what make a story stick. A name. A date. A place. A doctor’s report. A phone call. When someone gives you those, you lean in. You can see it.
The same is true when we talk about what God has done. “God has watched out for me” is a true sentence. But it is not yet a story. A good story is concrete. It points to something God definitely and definitively did.
So how do we get there? We start by paying attention.
Scripture: Joshua 4:22 — “then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.'”
Additional reading: Psalm 77:11 — “I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your wonders of old.”
When Israel’s children asked about the stones at Gilgal, God gave the parents their answer. Not “God was good to us.” Not “We had a hard time, but it worked out.”
Dry ground.
That phrase shows up again and again in the crossing story. The Jordan was at flood stage. Yet the people walked across on dry ground. God wanted that detail remembered because it showed exactly what He had done.
God has done concrete things in your life too. Sometimes we just do not stop to name them.
A few weeks ago I went in for a scope to check on Barrett’s esophagus. I had received that diagnosis in Tennessee, in Wisconsin and in Georgia. Every doctor said to keep an eye on it. This time the doctor sat me down afterward and said everything looked great. He did not see any signs of it.
He figured the other doctors must have gotten it wrong. Maybe. But I told him I was going to put that in the category of miracle, if that was okay with him.
I could explain it away. Or I could recognize it for what it was. A move of God. And I am grateful.
Yours may look different. A scan that came back clear. A job that showed up when you had run out of options. A relationship restored. You might be tempted to file those under coincidence. But where did that come from?
God is not an abstraction. The work of Jesus in your life is not vague or distant. It is concrete. He has worked, and He is working.
Here is a simple exercise. Sometime this week, take an inventory. Think back to the times you stood on the bank of a river you could not cross, and somehow you got across. Write down the details. The date. The place. What happened.
Those details are your dry ground.
Reflect: What is one specific moment when God brought you through something you could not handle on your own? What details from that moment do you want to remember and pass on?