The Flooded Well: A Story of God's Provision

During a recent quiet time, the Lord lead me to read the first few chapters of Ezra. I was kind of confused at first and, honestly, I don’t think I’d ever read that book before. I read it anyway.

It was a beautiful few chapters about when God brought the exiled Israelites back to Jerusalem and commissioned them to rebuild the Temple.

The thing that stuck out to me was before they even started to rebuild, the Israelites praised and worshipped the Lord. After that, they began to rebuild by laying the foundation of the Temple.

Ezra 3:11 says, “With praise and thanks, they sang this song to the Lord: ‘He is so good! His faithful love for Israel endures forever!’ Then all the people gave a great shout, praising the Lord because the foundation of the Lord’s Temple had been laid.”

The story continues and outside opposition comes. The Israelites had to stop, begin and stop again, until King Darius finally issued an order to not only approve the rebuilding of the Temple, but that the oppressors would be the ones to finance the entire construction process.

I thought to myself, “That’s such an awesome story of God’s provision, even in the face of unexpected opposition,” but then continued with my day and didn’t think too much about it.

The following Monday, I walked into The Well to discover it had been flooded over the weekend. Someone in the apartments above had turned on a bathtub faucet and fallen asleep, leaving the water running all night and flooding our beautiful space.

We were told we would be lucky if The Well was usable within a month. The next day, we walked in to discover the clean-up included hauling out all of our ruined furniture, tearing down our walls, and ripping up our beautiful flooring. Even the concrete underneath the flooring was being taken away.

My initial thought was, “Oh my gosh, this is heartbreaking,” but then the Holy Spirit softly reminded me of Ezra. “We are getting back to the foundation,” Holy Spirit impressed upon my heart.

An incredible sense of peace swept over me as I was reminded of the Israelites’ response of prayer and worship. We decided to respond the same way.

I don’t believe for a second that God caused the flooding, but I do believe that what was meant for harm will be turned around for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purposes (Romans 8:28).

We have seen so much favor in our community. All of our programs are still running because our neighbors heard about the flood and opened their facilities to us in support. We have new relationships and deeper connections in our community because of the flooding. We have also seen incredible favor with our insurance agents, facility managers and others in the process of rebuilding.

Just as the Israelites say in Ezra 3, “He is good! His faithful love endures forever!”