Genesis 8 NLT
Noah was now 601 years old. On the first day of the new year, ten and a half months after the flood began, the floodwaters had almost dried up from the earth. Noah lifted back the covering of the boat and saw that the surface of the ground was drying. Two more months went by, and at last the earth was dry! Then God said to Noah, “Leave the boat, all of you—you and your wife, and your sons and their wives. Release all the animals—the birds, the livestock, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—so they can be fruitful and multiply throughout the earth.” (13-17)
Chapter 8 begins with the words, “but God remembered Noah…” That might not seem like an interesting statement since everything that breathed air had been destroyed except for what was on the ark. Obviously, God is God and He doesn’t forget. What is meant is that now the waiting was finally coming to an end. Later on in the chapter those words “God remembered Noah” take on a more significant tone when you realize that they had been closed up in that boat for 10 ½ months! That was a long time to be closed up with all of those animals and just the food and provisions they had brought with them. Noah probably wondered if God had forgotten Him, but He had not. God was working His plan and Noah was forced to float along and trust Him the whole time.
To make matters worse, once that time was over and they could actually look outside and take in the fresh air, they had to wait two more months before they could leave the ark. Think about that, one whole year was spent tossing about in that ark, unsure of what would happen next—then stuck on Mt. Arat and waiting for the water to recede… one year with the same animals, the same people, the same four walls, the same smelly ark. I am not very good at waiting. Imagine the loneliness of being the only people left and the pressure that the future of the human race was literally in their hands. When I feel impatient or think that things are not moving fast enough for me, I remember Noah and that year of floating around.
For many of us, 2020 felt a little like being stuck in that ark. It seemed we were locked in and isolated; it felt like it was never going to end and we didn’t always get to choose those we were stuck with 😊. To make matters worse, I feel like we’ve opened the hatch, taken in the fresh breeze of 2021, and yet it seems there will be an added time of unexpected waiting for this all to pass—just like Noah and those last two and half months. The takeaways for me, though, are that just like the flood this will finally pass. It might feel like it’s dragging out forever, but it won’t be forever. And second, just as God “remembered” Noah, He also remembers us. In fact, He never forgot us and He has always been right here with us… just like He was right there in that Ark with them the entire time.
