The Bridge That Stayed

In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters finally receded from the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, residents returned to find almost nothing standing. Houses had been ripped from foundations and carried blocks away. Cars sat upside down in living rooms. But on the corner of Claiborne Avenue, one thing remained: the old concrete bridge spanning the Industrial Canal.

Engineers later explained that the bridge had been overbuilt decades earlier — designed to bear far more weight than anyone imagined it would ever need to carry. When the waters rose beyond all prediction, the bridge held. And in those desperate first days, it became the path home for thousands of returning residents. People walked across it weeping, stepping back into a landscape of devastation, but stepping across something that had not broken its hold.

Genesis 9 gives us a God who overbuilds His promises. After the waters of judgment recede, the Almighty doesn't simply say "I won't do that again" and move on. He establishes a covenant — not just with Noah, not just with humanity, but with every living creature on the earth. And then He sets the rainbow in the sky, a structural reminder anchored in creation itself. Every time the storm clouds gather, that arc of color announces: the bridge holds.

You may be walking back into devastation today. But the covenant of God was engineered to bear more than you can imagine. Look up. The sign is still there.