This week’s reading: Genesis 8:1-22
Hi Friends,
I want us to really put ourselves in Noah’s shoes this week. Too often, we fly threw these verses because we think we are so familiar with this story. Yet are me missing something valuable here? I think the commitment of these humans, literally the last ones on earth, is so important for us to learn from. Noah and his little family were not trying to impress anyone. God already admired Noah, as He says several times in just these last few chapters. The Bible also reminds us that Noah did everything God told him to do, showing his Faith in the God that no one else chose to believe in, much less follow. One might be tempted to think that Noah was just wanted to save his own skin, but that is not what is going on at, all. Noah’s trust in God as his Lord and only Savior causes him to be obedient. Do we get that? Noah is not trying to GET anything from God. He simply trusts God, and so, he is obedient. What an important and impressive lesson for all of us, isn’t it? None of us should obey God so that God will bless us. He already blesses us! We should choose to obey simply because He loves us and we desire to show that we love Him too. When you trust someone, and when you love the one you are trusting? Obedience is the natural next step. Noah displays this Faith over and over again…and while being literally shut in this Ark, he continues to reveal his faithful heart towards God, and I hope we see it too. Now listen to how God responds:
“But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.” Gen 8:1 NIV
God never forgets. One of the most wonderful Names that describe God is Omniscient. This means He knows everything. Every detail of the past, every circumstance of the present and every minutiae of the future. One thing we will never hear God say is, “Oh, I didn’t see that coming!” Nothing ever takes God by surprise. So it is interesting when the Bible says things like, “God remembered them.” So if God cannot forget because He knows every single detail, what does this mean then? Let’s think about it like this: a very challenging aspect to the Christian walk is learning to wait on God’s perfect Timing. We humans see things with a very limited capacity so to us, it always seems like the perfect timing! But God sees with an Eternal lens. God is working all of humanity together in this lovely ballet called life. God knows exactly where our heart is, where the heart of those around us are and so on, so only He really knows the best Timing for everything that happens on earth. There have been way too many times in my life where I thought, “Lord, I am ready to tell the whole world about You,” and still God has not opened those doors to me yet. Often He will reassure me with something like, “Child, you may be ready to tell the whole world, but the whole world is not ready for you.” Doing the right thing, at the wrong time, is wrong. Do we see that? While Noah was “blameless among the people of his time,” (I really do love that description of his noble character), even though he was blameless, how about the other seven people in the Ark with him? We don’t really hear about where their hearts were as far as it concerns God. You see, life is not just about MMI. We have those who need to be touched by us, but if they are not ready to hear our story, then we are wasting the opportunity. It is so much better to practice patience as we wait on God for His Wisdom in His Timing. Ahhh, patience. Still one of the virtues of the Fruit of the Spirit that I must continually ask God to grow within me. Yet this could very well be a big lesson God is teaching Noah and his little family. To trust in God’s Timing means we must be patient as we wait on Him. And here is the thing, the word “wait” does NOT mean we sit back and twiddle our thumbs and do nothing as we wait for God to make a move! No! To wait on God, yes, means being patient for Him to open, then lead us through those open doors…but it also means we are to serve God wherever we happen to be in the meantime. Think of a waiter or waitress. They don’t sit around until you call them to you…or they shouldn’t. The best service I ever get when I go out to eat is when the server will come around every now and again to see if we require anything else. We don’t have to go searching for them, but they courteously wait on us, get it? As we wait on God, we should be waiting on Him too. That is, we should serve God in every way. Coming to Him daily, praying something like, “Lord, what can I do for You today,” that is a sign of a very mature follower of Christ. Too often we are quick to bring prayers of, “Lord, do for me this or that,” and those prayers are needed…the Bible is clear that, “you do not have because you do not ask.” (see Jas 4:2) But it also continues by saying, “you need to have the right motives when you ask as well.” (see Jas 4:3) Yet if that is the only type of prayer we send up to our King, then perhaps this is why He is waiting for a better Timing, huh? Nowhere in these verses do we hear Noah crying out, “Oh Lord! We have been in here so long. What are You doing? Come open the doors of this Ark already and let us out.” NO. Noah simply waits on the Lord as he waits on the Lord. He and his little family take care of the animals and patiently wait for those waters to recede, trusting that those waters would recede. That is a picture of beautiful, maturing Faith.
God remembered Noah. When the Timing was right, when everything that was to happen on earth, as well as in the Ark, had happened, God turned His eyes back onto Noah and the residents of the Ark. The Bible says God sent a wind over the earth and the waters subsided. This reminds me of the events of Creation. Genesis 1:2 says, “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Another name for spirit is wind. So here it would seem like God’s Spirit is sent to make the high waters retreat, back into their boundaries, so that mankind and all the animal kinds can, once again, inhabit the land. The God Who created everything is still creating everything. Never does God say, “OK, I made it all, now, you guys are on your own.” God continues to be intimately involved in every aspect of life, even and especially when we are not aware of His working Presence. It’s not that God was not with Noah the whole time they were in the Ark- from the pouring rains to the rising waters- but rather, that sometimes when “nothing” seems to be happening, we do not sense God’s Presence in our situation. In His incredible talk with Nicodemus, Jesus says, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (Jn 3:8) Just like we cannot physically see the wind, but we can see its effects, as when the wind rustles the leaves on a tree for instance, so too many times we are not aware of God’s working Presence in and around us until “the waters recede,” that is, until something happens. When our prayers are answered and we get that which our hearts longed for, or even when we are able to bless someone and can clearly see their gratitude right before our eyes, then we say God is working in our lives. But the truth is, He has always been working. One of the promises of the Bible that I hold on to white-knuckled is, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Check out Jos 1:5, that’s the Old Testament, and also in the New Testament Heb 13:5, showing that what God promised in the beginning, He still promises now.) Another sign of maturing is trusting God is working, especially when we don’t see it. God works on those around us too, as I mentioned above, so we must wait on His perfect Timing to open doors for us. In addition, we must choose to believe He is with us before we see “the waters recede.” The Holy Spirit’s work is mysterious to us, as Jesus says in the verse above, but if we are “born of the Spirit,” we will begin to see the unseeable as we trust He is working in our “nothingness.” There will be less and less times that we question if God is remembering us or not. And the peace and joy we can experience through every type of situation, whether we physically see God moving or not, will be a steady and stable Rock on which we can stand, that will, hopefully, draw others into their own relationship with our Creator.
The Ark rested on the mountain of Ararat. After being tossed about in the pouring rains, after enduring the rising waters, and after sitting in the Ark waiting for something to happen, God causes this Ark to safely rest upon a mountaintop. God is so good to us that He often offers us too a time of rest after the turning waters of life leave us exhausted. We safely can stay with God and enjoy a mountaintop moment as we, both heal from what has happened, and hopefully, learn from what has happened. This is part of growth. God is such a merciful God that He would never allow things to go on and on, and on and on, without these times of rest in between. Sadly, sometimes we are so consumed with what has happened that we miss these moments. There were plenty of times in Beckie’s trials where she was not in the middle of a crisis, and we could simply breathe for a while. Yet my heart was so focused on her complete healing that I missed way too many of these occasions where I could have simply been with her and enjoyed her, wherever she was health wise. Some lessons are hard learned. My point is, as we grow in Christ, we will search for those times when we can simply rest in the Lord. One of the truths of life is that, we are either leaving a trial or walking towards one. It is that in between time were we can more fully rest in Jesus. This is not a negative viewpoint; it is just our reality. And if we do desire to grow, then we can begin to look at this reality as a good thing. (check out Jas 1:2-4) God never means any of it for our destruction, but He does mean it all to draw us deeper into Him and this wonderful relationship. This is how we grow. When trouble comes, (see Jn 16:33), we learn to run to God first, and not to try to figure it out all on our own. This alone grants us peace that surpasses understanding. (see Php 4:6-7) We can rest in God even when we are not sure what is going on, and we can rest in God when whatever was going on has stopped. Noah is a model in this respect. And this rest is firmly based on the level of our Faith. Look how simple his Faith was: God told him to build an Ark, so he did. God told him to bring in the animals and go into the Ark, so he did. God did not tell him when, or if, the waters would retreat, but God did give Noah plenty of acts of service to perform while in the Ark, so he did. And when Noah saw that the waters were starting to go down, Noah sent out a raven and waited. Just a side note, a raven was considered an unclean bird and so, it is symbolic for the carnal or sinful man, so when it does not come back, but just flies around and around, Noah then sends a clean bird, the dove and waits again. The dove comes back because there was nowhere for it to rest. So Noah waits again. Seven days later, he sends out the dove again. This time it returns with a freshly plucked olive leaf, telling Noah that trees were also emerging from the receding waters. Noah waits again, another seven days, and sends the dove once more. This time it does not return because it had found a place to rest upon this earth…and so too then could Noah and the other inhabitants of the Ark. Another side note that is lovely to see and points to Noah’s faithful commitment to God, is 1- the fact that Noah waited seven days in between sending out the dove, showing he was most likely still observing the Sabbath while in the Ark, and 2- that he did not panic during the whole escapade. Noah was resting in God the whole time even before that Ark came to rest on the mountain. May we follow his example and learn to rest in God through every kind of circumstance in life as well.
God’s promise. Noah was now 601 years old. A little over a year had passed and God then calls Noah and company to come out of the Ark. The first thing Noah does is build an altar to the Lord, revealing once more how God was the center of his entire life. And God, once more, responds. God establishes His covenant with Noah and promises him, and us, that He will never again destroy this world with all its living creatures…that is, “as long as the earth endures.” God will make sure “seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” I say again, “as long as the earth endures.” (see Gen 8:22) A covenant is an agreement between two parties. One side has duties it must fulfill, and so does the other side. God is more than Faithful to do His part and then some. But how about us? Are we protecting this planet? Are we being respectful towards all the animal kinds around us? And much, much more importantly, are we caring for one another? God has a perfect Timing for everything. God is always working even when we do not see it. And God will respond to our Faith and patience by increasing our level of rest in all situations. But we also have a part to play here, my Friends. Choose to grow in our Lord Jesus Christ so you will know and be able to do your portion of Humanity’s part. Like a body, everyone should be doing their bit so that life and this earth can all function in optimal health. Yet we can read the end of our lovely Bible, yes? We know this world will not endure, and so it becomes our greatest privilege and honor to bring in as many humans as we can into the Ark of Jesus so that, when God does bring about that final judgment, they can escape the sad eternal consequences of sin with us. In the past, Adam and Eve opened the door so that sin, and the devastation it brings, could come into this world. At the climax of Time, Jesus came and paid the price for all sin. Now the Holy Spirit can wipe the power of sin from the heart of each believer. And then, in the End of Time, God will close the door for the opportunity for Salvation. Let’s do our share of this ministry of reconciliation and live the godly life, drawing others to Jesus so that they too can have, enjoy and share the Abundant Life. This is the focus on my life, and while I still live my life so imperfectly, I can trust that God will always be with me, using my flawed actions to establish His Kingdom a bit further. And as I do, as I grow in Christ to trust God even when I do not see anything happening, the peace and joy I sense are increasingly abundant. Want that too? Then won’t you join me?
Until we meet again, keep lifting your eyes to God, He’s closer than you think.
<>< Peace, Diane
