Thankfully their story didn’t end with a sinking boat, but it very well could have.
Hurricane Harvey was catastrophic. It dropped 40-61 inches of rainfall in four days (33 trillion gallons of water) on SE Texas and Louisiana. “Harvey was the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the United States. The resulting floods inundated hundreds of thousands of homes which displaced more than 30,000 people and prompted more than 17,000 rescues” (Wikipedia).
Ty and his family, including his wife, daughter, cat, and dog, were going along fine in their rescue boat when suddenly it lost control, they heard a huge crack and water started rushing in. They had a minute or two before their boat would be completely sunk.
They had time to text “In danger, please pray” to the last few people they had texted. 911 had them on hold due to the volume of calls.
They looked out over the water, yelling for help, seeing only the void of the water. Nothing left they could do except pray.
And then….
A few good ‘ol boys in bass boats making rescues, that had been told hours ago to go home, just decided to see if anyone still needed help.
Just decided.
When Ty and his family arrived home, their beautiful home, their cars, their normal lives were replaced with only mud and destruction.
If there was ever a moment to ugly cry that was it.
If God asked you to give up everything, would you trust him to provide? What are you missing out on if you don’t?
In Genesis 22:2 God talks to Abraham and says: “Take Isaac, your only son, whom you love, and sacrifice him on the mountain I will show you” His SON! As a mother this is unfathomable to me. My kids are everything. What’s interesting about this story is not really the outcome of it (Spoiler alert: Isaac is not sacrificed) but that Abraham tells us in Hebrews 11:19 that he knew God’s character and “Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.” Abraham knew God’s character so well that he trusted the outcome.
Abraham calls God Jehovah-Jireh – God will provide. Provision doesn’t necessarily look like we think it will, but when we know God is a God of provision, it changes things.
For Ty, as he stood there with his family in front of a life that had just shattered, God showed up through friends to provide shelter and their immediate needs, grace and help to get through the tough days, a buyer to flip their house, and a long-lasting empathy for those who go through trauma.
God will provide.
Are you trusting God for something today? We’d love to pray for you. Let’s believe for it. God is a God who sees what you need and shows up at the right time.
Take a minute to listen to this song today by Maverick City Music called Jireh. Let it be the prayer of your heart, “Jireh You are enough Jireh You are enough I will be content in every circumstance Jireh You are enough”
