The Wednesday Night Nobody Expected

On a humid Wednesday evening in Beaumont, Texas, Margaret Tolliver — seventy-eight years old, arthritic hands folded in her lap — stood up during prayer meeting at Grace Community Church and began to speak. She described a dream she'd had three nights running: a dry creek bed behind the church filling with water until it overflowed into the neighborhood.

No one knew quite what to say. Margaret hadn't spoken publicly in years.

Then her sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Danielle, who'd been dragged there against her will, whispered to the woman beside her: "I saw that too. In my dream, the water reached the school."

Pastor Keith Williams watched as Luis Herrera, the church janitor who spoke halting English, stood next and described — with his daughter translating — a vision he'd had while mopping the sanctuary floor that Monday. Water again. Flooding out through the front doors.

Three people. Three generations. Three different lives. The same image.

Joel promised that a day was coming when the Almighty would not restrict His Spirit to prophets and priests. Sons and daughters would prophesy. The elderly would dream. The young would see visions. Even servants — those the world overlooks — would be swept into the current of God's purposes.

That Wednesday in Beaumont, nobody had status or credentials. They simply had a God who pours out His Spirit on all flesh — without audition, without reservation, without end.