We wait for the microwave to cook our food in a matter of seconds while leaning on the counter, shifting from one foot to the other, impatiently. Why is it taking so long?  We remove the food and see that it isn’t completely done.  We shove it back in for another minute of so—and grumble.  We grumble, blame and complain as we wait as self-soothers.  We sigh and grumble when we see the line to pay for groceries more than two carts long.  We sigh, roll our eyes, and grumble in any line for that matter.

We even grumble when the food ordered from a restaurant who has that “home cooking taste” we prefer takes longer than when we cook it at home—think about it.  We expect the impossible simply because we don’t like to wait.  We humans abhor waiting. And it shows.  Our mood only lifts when we hear, “no waiting at lane 7”.  But then as we race with others who heard the same message; we realize others who do not like to wait also end up at lane 7.  We become sullen and moody once more; thinking the whole world is against us.   

We also don’t like living in “limbo”.  We feel we “suffer” while waiting on that job we applied for days ago that could change the quality of our lives.  We worry over the wait of medical test results that could affect the way we live in the coming days. Wait comes in all forms and reasons with many kinds of processes to go through in the wait. Some wait over the ruling of a judge, for a rebellious child to come home, or for a word from doctors who are examining their child who has been tested for a possible terminal disease. Some are waiting, even now, at the bedside of their beloved mother or father, sister or brother, husband or wife, son or daughter, and watch them slowly pass from this temporary life on earth into the arms of Jesus.

Noah floated on a sea of waiting—for a year or more with a zoo!  How did he do it and what did he do in the wait?  Noah, along with his immediate family, waited in the ark until he heard from God who shut them inside.  Don’t you love how he sent out “test birds” to see how close they were to depart the ark! 

By faith and obedience; Noah waited until God’s work of Cleansing the earth was complete.  We wonder what was going on in Noah’s mind.  We have lessons to learn in our life of “wait,” don’t we?  Did Noah and his family hear the cries of the lost outside? What did he think when he heard rain fall on the roof of the his safe haven for the very first time?

Genesis 7

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. ² Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. ³ The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, ⁴ and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. ⁵ 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.

⁶ After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark ⁷ and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. ⁸ Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. ⁹ 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. ¹⁰ He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. ¹¹ 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. ¹² He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

¹³ 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. ¹⁴ By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.

¹⁵ Then God said to Noah, ¹⁶ “Come out of the ark,you and your wife and your sons and their wives. ¹⁷ 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.”

¹⁸ So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹ 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.

²⁰ 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. ²¹ 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.

²² “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

God remembered Noah.  To “remember” means to act on behalf of another. With remembering this implies a previous commitment made by God and announces the fulfillment of that commitment. We can be sure that God never forgets nor forsakes His people, not only because of His promises, but also because of His character. God is love, and where there’s love, there’s faithfulness. He can never deny Himself or His Word, for He’s the faithful God. God never changes; His love never changes.  God is faithful to His created made in His image. 

Noah trusted God.  Noah was a man of faith whose name and story was carried down through the ages and recorded in Hebrews 11.  Noah had the faith to walk with God when the people of the world were ignoring and disobeying God. He had the faith to work for God and to witness for God when opposition to truth was the popular thing. 

Noah’s family trusted God.  Noah’s wife, their three sons, and their three daughters-in-law were also believers; they proved it by standing with Noah while he worked and witnessed, and then by entering the boat in obedience to the Lord.

Noah and his family worshiped God.  I cannot imagine Noah not worshiping in the wait as well.  Even though God was busy cleansing the earth, He remembered Noah and worked on his behalf to keep him safe during the cleansing.  So, it is no wonder for faithful Noah, upon debarking the ark to first build an altar to God, gather his family, offer a sacrifice, with a heart of worship who wanted to please the God who saved his family.

When the wait was over, did their “shaky sea legs” become strong again? Did they give the animals a big send off with a message of “go forth, prosper and reproduce”? Did they notice how quiet the earth had become?  Did their relationships with God and each other grow even stronger because of the experience?  What is for certain is what Noah did first—Noah and his family worshiped the God who saved them.   

Can we be better, more holy, when we wait? Yes, we can—when our hope, faith, and trust is built on Jesus’s blood and righteousness who saved us.  When we same yes to Jesus and repent our sins to Him; we are cleansed—forever!  We do everything better when we love God, walk with Him in His ways and love others like He loves us, without conditions.

Lord,

There are so many lessons to learn as we read your story through the people who faithfully loved you back and walked with you. Continue to teach us to walk with you as we wait on you, let go of all that is not you, and trust in your promises. Thank you for always being with us and “remembering” us by working daily on our behalf.  There is no one like you!  You are absolutely everything we need. 

In Jesus Name, Amen

My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand:
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand.