Sunday, November 8, 2026From the news

The Water Rises, and God Is Still Near

Heavy rains have flooded tens of thousands of displaced families' tents in Gaza, and this devotional points to God's nearness, mercy, and steadfast presence in the middle of flood and fear.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

Psalm 46:1-2

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

Isaiah 43:2

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

Dear friend, let us begin this morning with a picture that is hard to hold. Heavy rains have flooded tens of thousands of tents in Gaza, where families already displaced by war have been trying to live. The Hamas-run government says about 70,000 tents were flooded, and a collapse of cracked walls and roofs has caused injuries, some of them critical. Residents have been using pots and pans to bail water out of shelters that were never built to withstand a winter storm. Some have been left with nothing to sleep under. A mother named Maryam Odeh, who lives with her children in Deir al-Balah, said she no longer knows how to protect them, and that her children ask where they will sleep tonight. She has no answer. If you read those words and felt something tighten in your chest, you are not alone in that.

I want to say this gently. Scripture does not look away from this kind of suffering. Many of the psalms were written by people who felt the waters closing over them, and they did not pretend otherwise. Psalm 46 begins with a confession that the ground itself can seem to give way: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Notice what the psalmist does not say. He does not claim the waters stopped roaring. He says God is a very present help within the roaring. Refuge is not the absence of the flood. It is the presence of God inside it.

The prophet Isaiah spoke to a people who had known terrible loss, and God's words to them were tender: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you." God did not promise to keep His people dry. He promised to walk with them through the water. That promise matters for the families in Gaza tonight, and it matters for us. The Lord is not a distant observer of this flood. He is near, and Psalm 34 tells us that He draws close to the brokenhearted and the crushed in spirit. When aid workers describe people stopping them on the street to beg for help, and when a father says he fears for his children from the cold and from disease, these are crushed spirits, and God is near them.

The writer of Lamentations knew what it was to sit among ruins, and yet from that place he wrote words that still steady the heart: "The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Those mercies do not deny the grief. They are the ground on which grief can stand, and they give us a reason to hope that the morning will bring something new, even when the night has been long.

So what do we do with this? Let me offer a few gentle invitations. First, let us pray specifically, and by name where we can, for the families in Deir al-Balah and across Gaza who are waiting for shelter, warmth, clean water, and medical care. Pray for the children, for the injured, and for the aid workers who are being asked for more than they can give. Second, let us ask God for wisdom and mercy for all who make decisions about what supplies can enter the territory and who govern and fight in this conflict, that the needs of ordinary families would not be forgotten. Third, remember that Jesus taught that care for the stranger and the hungry is care for Himself. Many of us cannot carry a tarpaulin into Gaza, but we can give generously to trustworthy relief agencies, and we can refuse to let these stories become one more headline we scroll past without a prayer.

Finally, take heart for your own week. Perhaps your own tent has been flooded in some way: a diagnosis, a bill, a broken relationship, a loss you did not see coming. The same God who walks through the waters beside Maryam Odeh walks beside you. You do not have to hold every answer together. You only need to bring your empty hands to Him, trusting that His mercies are new this morning, just as they were yesterday. Let us rest there together.