Rainy days can seem lovely at first but usually after several wet days, most people long for the sun to shine again so they can get out and about, get washing dry and go about their day without needing umbrellas and raincoats! Imagine rain falling for forty days and nights! Imagine being stuck inside with not just your family but thousands of animals! Noah and his family must have been getting pretty restless as weeks and months went by until more than a year had passed and they were still in the ark:
"But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible. After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry. Then God said to Noah, "Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it." So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.""
Genesis 8:1-22 NIV
We could speculate about how Noah and his family were feeling as the months went by but knowing that Noah was a righteous man, makes me think that he continued to faithfully lead his family, trusting God to continue to keep them safe and eventually bring the ark to dry ground.
Often our lives can seem out of our control and we can feel like we are in deep floodwaters, as one thing after another overwhelms us. Just as we read that God 'remembered Noah', we can be sure that He remembers us and cares about where we are at. God will keep us safe and bring us through if we just put our trust in Him! Just as God brought the ark to rest on a mountaintop, when we look to Him, He will always guide us to a safe resting place, high above our worries where we can watch as one by one our problems recede, just like the floodwaters!
With great expectation, Noah released first the raven and then the dove in order to see if dry land could be found. I imagine his relief would have been very evident as the dove finally returned with the olive leaf, then after being released once more, did not return again. The signs were looking good but Noah and his family remained on the ark until God gave the word that it was time to come out. Imagine how wonderful it was to be out in the fresh air and to stand on dry ground!
I'm sure there were many things that Noah felt like doing when he stepped out of the ark but the very first thing he did was to build an altar and to make sacrifices to the Lord. He remembered to thank the One who saved them and we read that it was a 'pleasing aroma' to the Lord.
Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
We thank You so much that You have saved us, not because we were righteous but because of Your great love for us in sending Your Son to die for us. Thank You that we are free from the law of sin and death and under no condemnation because we know that Jesus already took the punishment for our wrongdoings when He died on the cross.
Thank You for helping us through all sorts of situations where we feel inundated by the storms of life. Help us to always look to You to hold us up and may we find rest as we put our trust in You. May Your Word be the light that guides us to the next step of our journey. Help us to wait patiently for Your timing, just as Noah did.
Thank You for Your promise:
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze." Isaiah 43:2 NIV
Bless me today as I put my trust in You:
"Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life." Psalm 143:8 NIV
In Jesus' Name,
Amen.
"For you are the fountain of life, the light by which we see."
Psalms 36:9 NLT
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Light and Life for Today
Phi hư cấuA daily devotional for your time alone with God. In an increasingly dark world, more than ever, we need to look beyond what we can see, past our present circumstances. In order to see the light and experience life as our Heavenly Father intended, I...
