The River That Jumped Its Banks

In the spring of 1927, the Mississippi River swelled beyond anything the Army Corps of Engineers had planned for. For decades, they had built levees to contain the river, to channel its power through approved corridors. But that April, the water rose and rose until it shattered through every barrier from Cairo, Illinois, to the Gulf. The flood covered 27,000 square miles. Water rushed into places it had never been — cotton fields, front parlors, country churches, rail yards. No one could control where it went.

For centuries before Pentecost, the Spirit of the Almighty moved through approved channels — a prophet here, a priest there, a king anointed for a specific task. The Holy One reserved His breath for the select few. But Joel saw something coming that would make the old arrangements obsolete. God announced through the prophet that He would burst every levee. "I will pour out my Spirit on all people." Sons and daughters. Old men and young men. Servants — even servants.

This was not a controlled irrigation project. This was a flood. The Spirit of the Living God would rush into every place — into the elderly widow praying in her kitchen, the teenage girl sensing a call she cannot yet name, the immigrant worker lifting his hands at a storefront church.

No one gets to decide who the water reaches. The Almighty pours out, and the Spirit goes everywhere.