The drought that affected Texas beginning somewhere around 2008 crept up on us through the years like a slow cooking brisket. It was terrible. Our creeks dried up. Our ponds went dry. The rivers quit flowing, and our lakes, well, I had never seen anything like it.
You could drive your car on the dirt road that used to be your favorite fishing hole. Farmers had to send to other states for hay. I remember in 2010, passing hundreds of flat bed trucks in Georgia with round bales headed west.
Then May of 2015 happened.
I went on one of my many trips to India and spent a while hanging out with our orphans and leprosy overcomers. After a very long flight from Dubai, we began our descent right as we entered Texas airspace. I looked out expecting to see something that looked like the San Andreas fault. Instead, I saw the actual Red River! Lake Texoma was at flood stage and everything was green! As we flew over downtown Dallas I could see the Trinity was rolling like it hadn’t since 2007.
“What happened?” I kept saying out loud.
Thirty-five trillion gallons: that’s how much rain the Lone Star state had in May alone, according to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth. It was enough to cover the whole state up to nearly eight inches deep. The wettest May in recorded history.
Waco, Texas had 25 days of continual rain. Lake Travis had risen 50 feet – 50 feet, I say, scratching my head. Deweyville had been doused by more than 18 inches of rain in only a five-day span. It was a wonder, and it continued to rain throughout the rest of the year.
My house in Joshua had green growing on the shingles the way it does in Portland, Oregon. I came home to a completely different Texas than the one I had left. You know me. It made me think of how awesome God is.
TEXAS FLOOD
In the Bible, there is a prophetic story of a guy named Ezekiel who experienced the kind of flood that I’m talking about. In the 47th chapter of the book with his name, he says he saw water pouring out from the temple and he found himself ankle-deep, knee-deep, waste-deep, and finally, he was overwhelmed.
When I think about water levels rising, I think about this part of the scriptures. To me, it’s all about God’s goodness in my life. I don’t want to be an ankle-deep Christian. I don’t want to settle for mere knee-deep Christianity. I want to love God and love people in a way that is over my head. I want to be overwhelmed by the presence of God and the love of Jesus Christ. I think we can get as deep as we want to. I just think we are too scared to jump all the way in sometimes.
I encourage you to go after God in a way that is way too deep for most others. Allow yourself to get overwhelmed by the goodness and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in a way that is just too scary for safety seekers. He is inviting you out deeper and deeper, and you and I are not going to miss it.
Psalms 42:7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me