When the Reservoir Wall Came Down

In the highland villages of southern Mexico, water is life. For generations in one small pueblo near Oaxaca, a stone reservoir captured the only reliable spring for miles. The hacienda owner controlled access. Twice a week, families lined up with clay vessels, waiting for a measured portion. Children learned early that water was not free — it was rationed, earned, and never quite enough.

Then the reforms came. In the 1930s, the communal land redistribution broke the hacienda's grip. Villagers carved irrigation channels through the hillside by lantern light. When they breached the reservoir wall, water surged downhill into fields that had known only dry-season dust. An elderly woman named Esperanza, who had carried water jugs since childhood, knelt in her flooded garden plot and couldn't speak.

This is what the Lord promised through Joel. For centuries, the Spirit rested on the select few — a Moses, a Miriam, an Elijah. Prophecy was rationed. Visions belonged to the extraordinary. Then God declared, "I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams" (Joel 2:28). Servants, both men and women — no one excluded.

The Spirit of the Living God was never scarce. The day was simply coming when the wall would fall and the water would reach everyone.