The Long Quiet: Day 14



Genesis 7:1 When everything was ready, the Lord said to Noah, "Go into the boat with all your family, for among all the people of the earth, I can see that you alone are righteous. 2 Take with you seven pairs--male and female--of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice and take one pair of the others.  3Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird.  There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that all life will survive on the earth after the flood."

5So Noah did everything as the Lord commanded him.

6Noah was six hundred years old when the flood covered the earth...

11 When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the underground waters erupted from the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky.  12 The rain continued to fall for forty days and forty nights.

17 For forty days the floodwaters grew deeper, covering the ground and lifting the ark high above the earth.  18 As the waters rose higher and higher above the ground, the boat floated safely on the surface. 19Finally the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, 20 rising more than twenty-two feet above the highest peaks. 

24 And the floodwaters covered the earth for 150 days.

Seven days prior to the flooding, Noah and his family and these animals walked into the ark and the Lord shut the door behind them.  Genesis 6:9-16

Closed in.  Shut away from all the world, in the dark waiting for something they had never seen or heard nor understood.  Then the rain came.  Imagine that boat creaking as the waters surrounded it.  And the sinking feeling in their stomachs as the water began to lift it free of the earth and move it about.  Every single thing was a faith stretcher, wasn't it?

And there they stayed for 5 months after the flood waters peaked.  No light.  No word from God.  Nothing but darkness.  And the strange sensation of floating and rocking on the waters.

In the first week we ended with God resting from his labors after creating a paradise, and everything in it, including man.  Everything seemed rather blissful then, didn't it?  And here in week 2, we've gone from the disgrace in the garden, to murder, and exile. We end with Noah, trusting in God's promise of salvation but only at the expense of being shut away.

The first week filled me with awe, a deep quiet awe.  And this week...I am full of grief for a world that could be so lost it had to be destroyed, for men who wanted no part of God.  But Noah...

Noah believed and trusted God completely. That was what he acquired from walking in fellowship with God, complete trust in His plan.

I have experienced something similar in my life when I was away from my family and friends, and my days looked far different than they had before.  Following the car accident, I was in an unfamiliar town, among strangers. I had no idea what I was going to be returning to or even where I'd be returning.  During that time, I cried out a lot to God.  I had to live on faith and nothing but faith for months and months.  

When I returned to 'my' life, I was in a different job, in a different home, and I'd changed.  It was during these days that I sought out God the most.  He was all I had that remained the same.

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The Long Quiet: Day 14