February 6, 2017
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Water, Water, Everywhere

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Opening Prayer

Heavenly Father, I thank You for Your abiding, comforting presence which spurs me on to grasp the future You have for me.

Read Genesis 7:1–24

[1] The LORD then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. [2] Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, [3] and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. [4] Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.” [5] And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him. [6] Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. [7] And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. [8] Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, [9] male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. [10] And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth. [11] In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month-on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. [12] And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. [13] On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. [14] They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. [15] Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. [16] The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in. [17] For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. [18] The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. [19] They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. [20] The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. [21] Every living thing that moved on land perished-birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. [22] Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. [23] Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. [24] The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reflect

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in You. In God, whose word I praise—in God I trust and am not afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?” (Psa. 56:3,4).

Often those looking at this chapter concentrate on issues of historicity, setting out to prove that the flood did or did not happen. Questions about the reality, extent or timing of the flood may be important, but they can lead us away from what else the account might teach. There are two very different ways of looking at what happens. Starting from the perspective of God’s judgment, it is frighteningly awesome. We see that God’s decision to start again was all-consuming. The Bible does not allow us to turn God into what C. S. Lewis might call “a tame lion.” We may not always understand God’s actions, particularly in the light of what we know from elsewhere about his grace and mercy, but we can have no doubt about his power or right to act. The amount of water and the length of time it was on the earth reinforce statements about the total destruction of all life. It is the same earth, but there is no possible connection between the early years of the creation—as it were, prehistory—and the post-flood years, when history as we know it might be said to begin. However, if we start from the perspective of God’s protection of Noah we see very different things. The instruction to take pairs of all animals and seven pairs of clean (i.e., edible) animals ensured that life after the flood could continue. God himself shut them in (16), and Noah and his family were kept safe in spite of the destruction around them. Those of us who experience natural disasters, whether floods from too much water or droughts from too little, know the devastation they bring. We must be careful not to assume that they come from God’s direct decision—and we can choose, in studying them, to concentrate on the devastation or on seeds of hope.

Apply

Noah was obedient to God’s call. How have you handled God’s call to a difficult task?

Closing prayer

Lord God, in many ways these accounts of judgment are frightening, but thank You that You did allow humankind to start again.

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