When Evan Roberts Wept in a Chapel

In the autumn of 1904, a twenty-six-year-old Welsh coal miner named Evan Roberts stood before seventeen people in a small chapel in Loughor, Wales. He had no seminary degree, no publishing deal, no platform. He simply asked those present to pray one honest prayer: "Send the Spirit now, for Jesus Christ's sake." It was barely a trickle — a handful of voices in a cramped room on an ordinary Tuesday night.

Within days, the prayer meeting swelled to fill the chapel. Within weeks, coal miners were gathering before dawn shifts to sing hymns underground. Taverns across South Wales emptied. Magistrates reported so few cases that they were presented with white gloves — the traditional symbol of a court with no crimes to try. Police formed quartets instead of patrolling. Pit ponies in the mines stopped responding to commands because the miners had quit swearing, and the animals no longer recognized the clean language.

By the spring of 1905, over one hundred thousand people across Wales had professed faith. The revival spilled into England, Scandinavia, India, Korea.

This is the vision Ezekiel saw: water trickling from beneath the temple threshold, ankle-deep, then knee-deep, then a river no one could cross. Wherever it flowed, death gave way to life, and barren shores bore fruit. The Almighty does not need a flood to start. He needs a trickle that refuses to stop.