Stop waiting for the circumstances to visibly shift before you start behaving like the person you're becoming.
When I was starting my microschool, I scheduled a virtual open house for interested families prior to opening. I spent hours working on the slide deck, preparing responses to questions I anticipated, and sharing and resharing my novice attempt at marketing assets. By the evening of the open house, I felt fully prepared and excited to share the vision I was given with the community I would serve.
And no one came.
Not a single person showed up to the Zoom call. I sat there, staring at the screen, faced with a choice: shut it down and reschedule, or proceed as though the room were full.
I believed God called me to this work. So I delivered my entire prepared presentation — talking through the curriculum, the vision, the why behind what we were building — to absolutely no one. Then I logged off and ugly-cried myself to sleep, heartbroken that God had given me a vision for something that no one wanted.
Here’s what I’ve learned since then: It’s not really faith until it looks like it’s not going to happen. Anyone can believe when the path is clear and the outcome is guaranteed. But the faith that moves God’s heart is the kind that keeps holding on at the edge of human possibility.
The edge where logic says give up, where circumstances scream that God has removed His hand, where most would shrug and say, “it is what it is.” That’s the point when faith stops being a feeling and becomes an identity.
When faith becomes an identity, you don’t just believe for the blessing. You become the blessing before it arrives.
Hebrews 11 captures this perfectly: “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.”
Theologians suggest that Noah had never seen rain. He spent decades building for a flood he couldn’t even comprehend. There was no visible threat, no precedent, no proof. But Noah didn’t just believe God would send a flood, he embodied the identity of a man who would survive one.
He became a carpenter. An engineer. A sailor. He learned skills for a future he couldn’t see, following instructions for something he’d never witnessed. Noah took on the identity of a flood survivor before the waters came.
That’s the difference between believing and embodying belief.
I presented to an empty Zoom room because I had already become the founder of a school that would serve families, even if they hadn’t shown up yet. I wasn’t performing faith. I was embodying it.
Don’t wait for the circumstances to visibly shift before you start behaving like the person you’re becoming…
How does a person who woke up with a loving partner move through their day? What does a business owner who’s so in-demand they don’t chase clients do with their time? How does an emotionally regulated parent respond when their child asks six questions in a row?
In faith, take on that identity now.
Make decisions from that place.
Stop just believing for it. Be it.
I wonder…
What would you do if you knew you couldn’t mess it up?
What would you do if you knew the outcome was guaranteed?
How would you behave?
How would you BE?
I love you.
Coi Marie
Affirm: Each day, I embody the fullness of who God has called me to be.
Share this devotion
