Confidence

Theodore Roosevelt Dam

On Sunday we took a drive to Roosevelt Lake.  As we were looking out on Theodore Roosevelt Dam a line from a well-known hymn came to mind, A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.  A bulwark is defined as a wall or embankment raised as a defensive fortification or safeguard, a breakwater.  There it was in front of me, a bulwark - a 357 foot high concrete structure holding back 1.6 million acre feet of water, a defensive fortification safeguarding the valley below.

The original dam was completed in 1911 as one of the first projects of the Bureau of Reclamation which was established to harness rivers in the southwest to provide water and power for western growth and development.  Without these projects many of the cities of the arid southwest would not exist today.  In 1984, the safety of Roosevelt Dam was assessed.  It was determined that under extreme conditions the dam might fail. The largest possible flood would be greater than the dam’s capacity.  Roosevelt Dam needed to be modified to an additional 77 feet. Sure enough, in January 1993 before the modifications were completed, a huge flood caused by extreme rain fall caused overtopping on the left side of the dam resulting in massive amounts of damage.

Our lives, too, are subject to flooding.  At any moment the waters of trouble can threaten to undo us. We don't know what the maximum possible flood will be and it could be far greater than we previously projected.  If our confidence is in human resources alone we are subject to failure, but if we put our confidence in God’s mighty bulwark we will never fail. We can be confident that the waters will never overflow us. We can be confident that the dam will hold.  

I love you, Lord; you are my strength.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior;

my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. 

He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.

Psalms 18:1-2 (NLT)