We’re home now but the weather today reminds me of the first two and a half days of last week’s beach vacation, rainy and cold. Much too cool and windy outside for the two and six month olds, just cold enough to drain the excitement from the toddlers in the first five minutes, and no sun for the would be sunbathers. The swimsuits were laid out and the life vests ready and waiting but there would be no swimming, no wave jumping, no kite flying, no splash pad, no feeding ducks, and no golf cart rides until day three.
I have a renewed appreciation for the angst of the ladies waiting outside the tomb. We know Jesus was resurrected on the third day but they did not have our hindsight. I felt responsible for everyone getting to enjoy their week in the ways they’d imagined. The weather forecast had looked perfect for the week after Labor Day but cooped up inside the house, tensions were mounting and toddlers were bouncing off the walls! Though our rented home away from home was spacious and accommodating, we were pent up.
“This is the story of Noah. Noah was a godly man of integrity, without fault in his generation, and he lived close to God.”
Genesis 6:9 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/gen.6.9.TPT
Living close to God is one thing. He is Spirit and though He fills everything with His presence, He is often difficult to perceive and all too easy to ignore. Eleven people in one house, four aged three and under, though a very different story is nothing compared to Noah’s family adventure recorded in the Bible in Genesis chapters six through ten.
“On that very day, Noah and his wife, their sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, and their wives, entered safely into the ark.
Pairs of every species of animal entered with them—wild animals, domesticated animals, large and small, and every species of bird and winged creatures—every animal that has the breath of life came into the ark with Noah.
Both male and female went inside as God had commanded Noah; and Yahweh himself shut them in.
And the waters covered the earth for 150 days.”
Genesis 7:13-16, 24 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/gen.7.13-24.TPT
Eight adults and all those animals and provisions for an unknown stretch, only God knew how long and only God could have pulled off such an impossible task. I have a large twelve passenger van. We were packed to the gills and just my daughter and her two boys were traveling with me. We needed to unload everyone and everything before picking up groceries for a week and we still made several trips out for food and necessities during our stay.
We’re told repeatedly throughout the Biblical account that Noah obeyed God, doing everything exactly as God commanded him. Under the circumstances, I feel certain his obedience became more difficult to live with as time wore on. Packing the car before the trip was easier than packing for the return trip. Both times I stressed a little over forgetting something but there’s a Dollar General on every corner and forgotten stuff can easily be replaced. I never once worried about running out of food. Someone’s favorite soda or snack may have run short but I never worried about anyone going hungry.
My grands and I share a favorite among their Bible storybooks at my house. “Goodnight, Ark,” written by Laura Sassi and illustrated by Jane Chapman, (copyright 2014 ZonderKidz) https://www.christianbook.com/goodnight-ark-boardbook-laura-sassi/9780310749387/pd/749382 a memorable bedtime rhyme capturing Noah’s debacle when the storm-scared animals disturb the sleeping skunks makes us laugh every single time we read it, but the task entrusted to Noah by God was no laughing matter. Every task, great or small, entrusted to you by God is significant and Noah’s obedience is exemplary still today. God sees your heart and He knows your thoughts as you obediently put one foot in front of the other. Jesus said to love Me is to obey Me. Every act of obedience is an expression of love to God who loved us first. (John 14:15, I John 4:19)
“God’s heart was moved with compassion as he remembered Noah and all the animals, large and small, that were with him in the ark.
And God caused a wind to sweep across the earth again and the waters subsided.
He closed the subterranean fountains and the floodgates of heaven and held back the rain.”
Genesis 8:1-2 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/gen.8.1-2.TPT
God had not forgotten Noah and moved on to other galaxies to manage more weighty matters. God was fully present with Noah and his motley crew in the ark every second of every wearying day. The wind He sent was nothing less than His breath, His hovering Spirit, present at creation, speaking all that is into existence, setting boundaries for the waters.
God moved with compassion because the time was right. In the fullness of time, God. At just the right time, God. We see this throughout Scripture and always with Jesus, God’s eternal yes and amen. (II Corinthians 1:20)
“But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”
Romans 5:8 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/rom.5.8.NLT
“Christ arrives right on time to make this happen.
He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready.
He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready.
And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway.
We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice.
But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.”
Romans 5:6-8 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/rom.5.6-8.MSG
“Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons, and their wives.
Release all the animals with you and set them free—birds, animals large and small—every living thing.
And they will multiply and abound and flourish on the earth and in the sky.”
So Noah and his family left the ark; and every animal large and small, every bird and crawling thing came out of the ark by families.”
Genesis 8:15-19 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/gen.8.15-18.TPT
Noah had to be flooded with relief when this word from God came. With only an eighteen inch gap around the top of the ark to let in light, those first forty days must have been pure torture. Animals more than toddlers thrive out of doors. The weeks on end afterward could only have been survivable by the resting Spirit of God, the same Presence that closed the mouths of lions for Daniel and walked in the fire with his friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (aka Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.) The voice of God is precious and necessary, as necessary as the air we breathe, and it is readily available. The B-I-B-L-E. Yes, that’s the Book for me. I stand alone on the Word of God. Scripture is living and active and God is still speaking but His still small voice will never say anything contrary to His Word, the Bible.
Now was the time for gratitude. Noah built an altar and made an appropriate and acceptable sacrifice. As his feet touched terra firma for the first time in almost a year, the swaying in his head and legs must have taken a moment to still, but Noah had been standing on solid Rock all along. His confidence was in God alone. Being human, he definitely second guessed himself. Maybe he and his wife had long talks away from their children when they heard them grumbling, but when God shut that door, there was no going back. Noah gave God his unqualified yes, his amen, his Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven long before Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount and God counted His faith as righteousness. (Hebrews 11:7)
“So Noah completed all these preparations and did everything exactly as God had commanded him.”
Genesis 6:22 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/gen.6.22.TPT
“Then God said to Noah and his family, “I establish my loving covenant with you, your descendants, and every living creature that is with you—animals large and small, birds, and every living thing that came out of the ark.
I will maintain my loving covenant with you.
I will never again completely destroy life on earth by means of a flood. Yes, never again will a flood destroy the whole earth!
Here is the sign for you and future generations that my loving covenant will endure between me and you and every animal that came with you out of the ark: I have placed my rainbow among the clouds, and it will be a sign of my loving covenant between me and the earth.
Whenever I bring clouds over the earth, and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant with you and with every living thing upon the earth.
Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy life from the earth.
When the rainbow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant I made with you and every living thing of every kind upon the earth.”
So God said to Noah, “The rainbow is my signature in the sky, my seal of love to confirm that I have kept my covenant between me and every living thing on earth.””
Genesis 9:8-17 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/gen.9.12-17.TPT
We ended our stay by packing up in torrential rains well past dark. After a day spent indoors instead of the last day we’d imagined, sun and sand and swimming in the pool, we slept restlessly, not the best start to a long day of traveling. Our bright spot came just before the last leg of our return trip when we met up with a dear friend turned family, Auntie Tonya, and though the tropical storm meant we didn’t meet at the zoo, we enjoyed food court goodies together after several laps through the length of the mall. Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape. Thank you, Nathan Neighbors, for that maxim, and thank You, Jesus, for your perfect peace in every circumstance. May I look to You first, only, and always for You alone never disappoint.
In Noah’s day, “injustice and violence filled the world; the earth was ruined (that is, everyone had corrupted their lives with wickedness) in the sight of God, for he saw how debased the world had become, for everyone was corrupt to the core.”
Genesis 6:11-12 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/gen.6.11-12.TPT
Ruined. Corrupted to the core. That’s the world in a nutshell. It’s the same world Jesus was born into, the same world He entered to seek and to save the lost. Nothing has changed. God’s promise to Noah in no way means the world no longer deserves destruction. God is being patient, not wanting anyone to choose destruction, but He won’t hold back forever. Just as the flood waters came, Jesus will return to judge the earth.
“But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief.
Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.
Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along.
On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames.
But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.
And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.
And remember, our Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved.”
2 Peter 3:10-15 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2pe.3.10-15.NLT
Noah was a farmer before God called him to be a builder. His response, punctuated by hammer blows, to his neighbor’s off-color remarks may have sounded a little like Jonah’s reluctant message to the Ninevites or John the Baptist’s unpolished cry, simple but requiring a response. Rains coming. You think you’re that good a swimmer? How will you escape the coming flood? We’ve got the answer in Jesus. We’ve got a window of opportunity.
“I solemnly urge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who will someday judge the living and the dead when he comes to set up his Kingdom: Preach the word of God.
Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not.
Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching.
For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching.
They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.
They will reject the truth and chase after myths.
But you should keep a clear mind in every situation.
Don’t be afraid of suffering for the Lord.
Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you.”
2 Timothy 4:1-5 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2ti.4.2.NLT
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