“However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.”
—1 Corinthians 15:46
Our modern Western mindset often reverses the divine order. We tend to believe that we must become spiritual first—pray more, believe more, do more—and then we’ll see results in the natural world.
But that’s not how God operates.
Scripture teaches us a different order: first the natural, then the spiritual. That truth is clearly spelled out in 1 Corinthians 15:46, where Paul writes, “However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.”
Paul was speaking about resurrection, but this principle runs deeper. It reveals how God often works in patterns, parallels, and signs—using natural events to signal spiritual truths.
As my friend Robert Mawire once wrote,
“All prophecies must have a spiritual and material fulfillment in history. What God does in the natural, He follows with the spiritual. Isn’t it marvelous?”
God reveals His plans in the visible world first—through people, nations, events—and then breathes spiritual life into those natural movements.
Take Israel, for example.
God called Israel “the apple of His eye” (Zechariah 2:8). When we look at Israel, we see not just a nation—we see a reflection of God’s heart, His covenant, and His unfolding plan.
For nearly 2,000 years, Israel didn’t exist as a nation. Then, in 1948, the dry bones of Ezekiel’s prophecy (Ezekiel 37) came together. The natural miracle happened: a nation was reborn.
But Ezekiel observed: “there was no breath in them.”
The spiritual revival was still to come.
First the natural. Then the spiritual.
And this divine pattern isn’t limited to nations—it happens in our personal lives too.
God will often begin to move in your natural circumstances—a shift in a relationship, a new opportunity, a closed door—and those moments hold deeper spiritual significance if we have “eyes to see.”
Ask Him:
“Lord, what are You showing me through what’s happening around me?”
“What are You doing in my heart through what I’m experiencing?”
God’s goal is always the same: to build, to restore, and to heal—both naturally and spiritually.
So don’t dismiss what’s happening in the physical world as mere coincidence. Sometimes, it’s the first whisper of something profound God is doing in the spiritual.
Watch. Listen. Trust.
Because what begins in the natural may very well be the beginning of a divine miracle in your soul.
