The Farmer Who Planted After the Flood

In March 2019, floodwaters from the Missouri River swallowed Don Heger's farm near Craig, Missouri — 1,200 acres buried under silt and debris. Neighbors lost everything. The levee system had failed, and federal aid moved at a glacial pace. Don stood at the edge of his ruined fields and asked the question every honest believer eventually asks: Where is God in this?

He could have walked away. Crop insurance would have covered a fraction. Instead, Don did something that puzzled even his own family. He climbed the grain elevator — the highest point on his property — and surveyed the land. Not to assess damage, but to plan. He told a reporter from the Kansas City Star, "I needed to see what was still there, not just what was gone."

That next season, Don planted soybeans in soil everyone said was too contaminated to yield. The harvest came in at 90 percent of normal.

Habakkuk did the same thing. Surrounded by violence and injustice, the prophet climbed his watchtower — not to escape, but to watch. To wait. To listen. And the Almighty answered: "The vision awaits its appointed time. Though it lingers, wait for it. It will certainly come."

Faith is not the absence of the flood. It is the farmer on the elevator, scanning damaged ground, believing something can still grow.