Destroyed

 

Friday, May 15, 2020

Genesis 7:1-5, 17-24

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.  Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice, and take one pair of each of the others.  Also 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.  Seven days from now I will make the rains pour down on the earth. And it will rain for forty days and forty nights, until I have wiped from the earth all the living things I have created.”  So Noah did everything as the Lord commanded him.

For forty days the floodwaters grew deeper, covering the ground and lifting the boat high above the earth.  As the waters rose higher and higher above the ground, the boat floated safely on the surface.  Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, rising more than twenty-two feet above the highest peaks.  All the living things on earth died—birds, domestic animals, wild animals, small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the people.  Everything that breathed and lived on dry land died.  God wiped out every living thing on the earth—people, livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and the birds of the sky.  All were destroyed. The only people who survived were Noah and those with him in the boat.  And the floodwaters covered the earth for 150 days.

There are plenty of disasters from which to choose an image:

·       Wildfires in California destroying subdivisions and memories

·       Tsunamis in Indonesia decimating coastline life

·       Terrorist attacks and the incredible stench of death’s aftermath

·       People standing dazed in the rubble after a tornado

Noah is the poster child for disaster.  Yet, the magnitude of the destruction of that global flood is largely contained in just two paragraphs; essentially it boils down to:  God said he’d wipe the earth clean, and it was so. 

Just like the account of creation, God said – and there was!

This morning, when I went to the computer to post today’s devotion, I found the tech version of Noah’s world; everything was gone.  The physical computer machine was there, looking all innocent and 21^st century put-together, like the Earth after the flood.  But, when I booted up the criminal, all my files were under the deepest blue sea.  Here last night; gone this morning.  What now?  I felt the electronic equivalent of being cut-off from the past 40 years of ministry records, sermons, correspondence, bills, and (oh, my) FACEBOOK. 

I spent the next hour muddled in confusion about what to do next and recriminations over not being more diligent with backing up my files; I also prayed fervently…Oh, LORD, if you’ll just give me back my files I’ll be good….

I’m still not entirely sure what happened, but one word popped into my technologically-challenged brain – RESTART.  So, I did, and voilà, my files were back, and now I’m writing the next devotion. 

Noah wasn’t so lucky.  Or, was he?

There are two hinges to consider here:

·       Hinge #1.  God said He was going to do a new thing

·       Hinge #2.  God did it.

God told Noah to get in the boat, and then God closed the door on the previous chapter.  Then God opened a new chapter for the righteous man and his family.  This begs the question that is frequently my cling-to thought whenever it seems my world might fall apart (or be flooded over to 22 feet above the mountaintops):

What could be better than being in the center of God’s will?

Even when He decides it’s time for a restart?

For You Today

Our new normal after the virus flood is (at this moment) just a foreboding.  I’m not sure I’ve seen any pairs of animals gathering by twos…but, stay tuned, you never know what God is up to; our only certainty is the cross and an empty tomb.  Everything else is like what Noah left behind.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on “Flood Recovery in Genesis see “After the Storm” Part 1 and  Part 2

Making Sense in a Storm

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Friday, October 4, 2019

Don’t worry about the wicked or envy those who do wrong.  For like grass, they soon fade away.  Like spring flowers, they soon wither.  Trust in the Lord and do good.  Then you will live safely in the land and prosper.  Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.  Commit everything you do to the Lord.  Trust him, and he will help you.  He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn, and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun.  Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act.  Don’t worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes.  Stop being angry!  Turn from your rage!  Do not lose your temper—it only leads to harm.  For the wicked will be destroyed, but those who trust in the Lord will possess the land.  Psalm 37:1-8[2]

I watched a TV show recently where a tsunami swept over the California coastline.  I’ve seen plenty of video and still shots of the damage such a storm can produce, but this dramatization staged everything to help the viewer experience the raw power and arbitrary selection of whose life to ruin.  It was memorable, which I’m certain was the director’s intention.  It got my attention, and for the next couple of days sleeping was more difficult.

As I reflect over the number of tsunami-like waves that have appeared in my lifetime and changed everything, it gets a little mind-staggering.   Vietnam, the assassination of President Kennedy, landing on the moon, fall of the Berlin wall…these (and many more) are epochal game changers. 

Another tsunami game changer was the 2015 Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex marriages, undercutting two thousand years of church teaching (not to mention 6 millennia of common sense!).  That 9-judge ruling set off a wave of celebration and anger across the continent.  I certainly didn’t (and still don’t) agree with the decision, but rather than fretting or anger, I’ve learned (along with the Psalmist) to trust God with what He’s doing, despite how unsettling it all seems.

One disclaimer here.  While I disagree with the court’s decision, and even the idea of homosexuality being good, or even normative, I also take my cue as to how to behave towards my fellow human beings from Scripture.  I call no person insignificant because of how they were born, or how they choose to act.  We are all God’s creatures.  On the other hand, naming sin, while loving the sinner, puts one in a precarious position.  It’s easy to be labeled a homophobe if you don’t agree with the LGBTQ++ agenda and, because of conscience, choose to come out of the quiet background about it.  The trick, as I see it, is to put away the anxiety over it, act with graciousness towards everyone, and remember how my sins are no less worrisome to God than those of anyone else!  Complex issues are just that, and you run the risk of being misunderstood if you try for simplistic “solutions”.  However, I don’t think you can do better than the simple loving principle the Psalmist lays down:  

Trust in the Lord and do good.  Psalm 37:3

In this case there are a lot of moving parts in human interaction when it comes to that last phrase, do good.  The list begins in the Psalm also:

Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act.  Don’t worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes.  Stop being angry!  Turn from your rage!  Do not lose your temper—it only leads to harm.  Psalm 37:7-8

For You Today

It’s not wrong to speak up, but if you would do that, remember to be still in the presence of the Lord first…exercise patience without worry or anger.  If God gives you something to say there won’t be any room for self-righteousness.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com    Unless noted, Scripture used from The New Living Translation©

[2] For another post on this text see:  Cleaning Up the Mess 2/27/19

Lenten Walk - Part 16

[1]

Thursday, March 8, 2018

Then God told Noah and his sons, “I hereby confirm my covenant with you and your descendants, and with all the animals that were on the boat with you—the birds, the livestock, and all the wild animals—every living creature on earth.  Yes, I am confirming my covenant with you.  Never again will floodwaters kill all living creatures; never again will a flood destroy the earth.”  Then God said, “I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come.  I have placed my rainbow in the clouds.  It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth.  When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures.  Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life.  When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth.”  Then God said to Noah, “Yes, this rainbow is the sign of the covenant I am confirming with all the creatures on earth.”  Genesis 9:8-17^(NLT)

Noah needed this!  After a year like he’d just had he needed a rainbow!  The beginning was bad enough; through years of struggle to build the ark he’d endured the insults of the whole community referring to him as that crazy old man building a boat the size of Kansas…and not even a pond nearby.  His wife and three sons helped, but, in the backs of their minds even they must have wondered if the community naysayers were right; had their father lost it?  Was Noah deranged?  And then God brought all those animals…messy, smelly, loud, and some dangerous.  If this was going to be a fun cruise, Mrs. Noah and the boys didn’t recall seeing anything like that in the brochures!

And then it started raining!  And God shut them in the dark ark!  And they could hear the screams, people begging to let them come aboard; and then it was silent.

A year later it was silent again as they stepped off their floating houseboat onto dry, uninhabited, silent earth. 

Although I cannot say for certain, my guess is one of two conditions existed:

·       Planet earth was the smelliest place in the universe with all the corpses of animals and humans rotting everywhere, the devastation of the mother of all tsunamis worse than the path of a midwest twister.

·       Planet earth was new and pristine, God having miraculously restored some order to what man managed to mess-up since the time of Adam and Eve.

Either way, there is one thing you couldn’t mistake:  once all those animals, snakes, birds and mosquitoes disembarked the ark and dispersed into the surrounding mountainous areas, Noah began to take-in just how very alone he and his family were.  And it was quiet…very quiet.

And at that moment came the words Noah needed:  Never Again!  With that short, powerful promise God spoke comfort to the whole human race – all 8 people – it was assurance that God would never again let the floodwaters destroy everything.

You don’t have to fast-forward very far to see who broke the covenant; Noah laying drunk in his tent, and his family’s fear and disobedience, evidence that we forget very quickly…even when God has led us through the worst storms.

We also need those words, never again.  I believe these are the same words we hear echoing from heaven after the cross, God having endured the pain of forgiving our sins at the cost of His own dear son:  Never again; this sacrifice is sufficient and permanent!

These are the words we hear about our forgiven sins when the enemy tries to bring them up, to trip us up:  Never again; those sins are under the blood!

These are words we need from time to time in our walk through a season of Lent; these are the words we need in our walk through life. 

For You Today

Keeping the right perspective on the promises of God is vital.  When God says never again, His nature and character have the power to sustain such a promise.  We, on the other hand, must remember when we say never again, to include:  with God’s help!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

After the Storm

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Monday, November 28, 2016

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat.  He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede.  The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky were stopped.  So the floodwaters gradually receded from the earth.  After 150 days, exactly five months from the time the flood began, the boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.  Two and a half months later, as the waters continued to go down, other mountain peaks became visible.    After another forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the boat and released a raven.  The bird flew back and forth until the floodwaters on the earth had dried up.  He also released a dove to see if the water had receded and it could find dry ground.  But the dove could find no place to land because the water still covered the ground.  So it returned to the boat, and Noah held out his hand and drew the dove back inside.  After waiting another seven days, Noah released the dove again.  This time the dove returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak.  Then Noah knew that the floodwaters were almost gone.  He waited another seven days and then released the dove again.  This time it did not come back.  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.”  So Noah, his wife, and his sons and their wives left the boat.  And all of the large and small animals and birds came out of the boat, pair by pair.  Genesis 8:1-19^(NLT)

Most pictures I’ve ever seen depicting Noah and his family leaving the ark show them stepping back into Eden.  There’s always a beautiful rainbow in the sky and the earth is covered with flowers and beautiful trees and grass; it’s perfectly lovely, even the animals have smiles on their faces.

How naïve!  This had been the mother of all storms!  The earth had been wrecked, and the evidence of death and debris must have been overwhelming.  The damage from the 2005 Indonesian tsunami would be mild compared to what Noah’s family was facing.

In Genesis 7 we learn that the storm was relatively short – just 40 days of torrential rain, and the waters bursting up from the ground destroying everything.  But it took Noah 7½ more months to open the window and peek-out!  Even then he could only see mountain peaks sticking out of the water.  It took nearly 5 more months for the ground to dry-up.  Finally God told Noah to leave the ark and begin this new beginning.

There is a pattern here that is useful for us when we face our storms of loss.  God gave Noah and his family many months of darkness to remember the cost of how his generation had forsaken God and made the culture a stench in God’s nostrils.

He also gave them months after the storm, and before the floodwaters receded, to contemplate what they would do when, and if, they could return to a more normal existence.

The pattern is evident:  the bigger the storm, the longer the process of recovery.

When we experience loss the recovery process is somewhat different for each person, because we see things differently, and react according to our personality and culture.  But the mainframe of recovery operates on the scale of time for everybody.  All the losses of life include a time for reflection on what (or who) has been lost, and a time of contemplation about how life will make sense after the storm has passed.  And then there is that time when, if you are listening, you will hear God say… now leave this behind – go and be fruitful.

For You Today

If you’re not going through the storm, or plodding through the aftermath’s destruction, just tuck these little thoughts away.  You’ll need them someday. 

If you are dealing with a loss, keep trucking…keep releasing ravens and doves…keep listening…the storm happened…but the waters aren’t forever. 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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NOTES

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[i] Title image: AusAID [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons