When the Levee Breaks

If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break
If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break
When the levee breaks I’ll have no place to stay
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan
Lord mean old levee taught me to weep and moan
It’s got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home
Oh well, oh well, oh well

Don’t it make you feel bad
When you’re tryin’ to find your way home
You don’t know which way to go?
If you’re goin’ down South
They got no work to do
If you don’t know about Chicago

Cryin’ won’t help, you prayin’ won’t do you no good,
Now cryin’ won’t help, you prayin’ won’t do you no good.
When the levee breaks mama you got to move
All last night sat on the levee and moaned.

All last night sat on the levee and moaned.

When the Levee Breaks, was originally written and performed as a country blues song by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie. It was made famous in 1927 when the Mississippi river flood occurred. Later, in 1971, the rock group Led Zeppelin did a remake of the song with the same lyrics, but a much different rock edge beat and guitar riffs. The message is still the same.

You can tell the song was penned…

… by someone that is feeling very down and depressed by the destruction that was headed their way. Besides the fact that the author really did not have a relationship with God which made it even sadder and more depressing with him lamenting, “prayin’ won’t do you no good”.

When the ‘Levee Breaks’ can also be a real metaphor for when things go wrong in our lives. Yes, it’s a real occurrence if you live along a river or near the ocean when storms blow in or rivers overflow their banks and the dike or barricade gives out. The destruction of flooding can be devastating for many people losing their homes and businesses and possibly lives.

When our Personal Levee Breaks…

..the destruction we leave behind can be just as devastating when our personal levee breaks. Sometimes God puts a lot of pressure on our own individual river or body of water until our human levee gives out. Water is spilling out over the top of the dam and we do not notice. Many times, that is the only way God can get our attention when he lets our levee burst. Sometimes we feel the pressure building up but many times we are oblivious.

Our behaviors, unchecked over time, through our addictions or selfish desires, will bring water to the top of the dike and over. God will turn us over to our cravings and let us have what we so desperately think we want. He lets us come to the end of ourselves. It never ends like we think it will. These secret desires sing to us in such beautiful melodies and fool us that this is the ticket to be punched and the train to take. It’s all vanity or empty promises. Cotton candy in the end with no true lasting substance.

When the Levee Breaks

Is it all meaningless?

What is your measuring stick for meaningful?

Ecclesiastes from the Old Testament of the Bible, talks about this very thing. To me it’s the hardest and most eye-opening book of the Bible. It wastes no time getting down to the nitty-gritty, to the most essential questions that have plagued mankind from the beginning. Is this all there is? What does all this mean?

King Solomon is named as the author but, there is some dispute who really wrote it. Textually, the book is the musings of a King of Jerusalem as he relates his experiences and draws lessons from them, often self-critical. He was someone who had it all in his life like no one else through out history. He was rich beyond all measure. He had many wives and concubines. He took worldly pleasure when every he felt like it. God had given him wisdom so he understood things that most people could not. He was king over one the most powerful countries and armies of the time. Needless to say, he wanted for nothing.

He finally came to the conclusion, emphatically proclaiming all the actions of man to be inherently meaningless or futile. Because inherently the lives of both wise and foolish men, end in death. In light of this perceived senselessness, he suggests that one should enjoy the simple pleasures of daily life such as eating, drinking, and taking enjoyment in one’s work, which are gifts from the hand of God. The book concludes with the injunction: “Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone” 12:13

In light of what is written in Ecclesiastes you could become very depressed because the writer is really getting at the heart of exitance and life on planet earth for all humans if they have an easy life or hard. How long does life last for a typical person? 30, 40, 60 or 80 years. Remember a long life is denied to many. But what is a long life and is it just a few more years tacked on?

My dad used to say…

…to me before he died, I do not know how I got here so fast. Now that I am in my 6th decade of life I understand what he meant. All those years behind me are but a distant memory now. Like the Bible says, life is but a vapor.

If you do not think there is a God then life here is a very cold and empty thing. In fact, the whole universe with all its billions of galaxies and trillions of stars is a very cold and empty thing. All life that has existed on this little tiny blue planet inside of this universe is meaningless and without purpose or meaning. When you die does your existence just wink out and then forgotten within a generation of being put into the ground? All the billions of souls that have ever walked and breathed and had families and had dreams is nothing but empty vapors.

I think this is why God allows our levee to break. Why would God give us pressure in our lives? Why does He let us experience death, pain, sadness or loneliness. What does it take for us to think outside of our little box we call life. Deep in our hearts we know that there is more to life, even when this life has many good aspects to it, it still does seem empty especially without Jesus. Everything grows old, withers and dies. God designed all life to do this very thing.

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” C.S. Lews  

Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie on YouTube When the Levee Breaks

Led Zeppelin on YouTube When the Levee Breaks

Bible Gateway Ecclesiastes

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