I was reading in Genesis the other day, the story that I have read seemingly over and over again. Noah and the Ark. I know the story, I know the characters, and I seem to have a pretty good mental picture of the event and how massive and overwhelming it must have been. However, in the typical fashion of God, He opened my eyes to something new.
The wait.
I read Genesis 7:10 then 7:12, then I got to verse 24, then Genesis 8:4 then verse 6 then verse 10 then verse 13 then verse 14... and then I sat back and shook my head. Thoughts flooded my brain. The repetition was obvious, and the repetition was never obvious to me before. Over and over and over again (as you can see) the writer tells of how many days this event took. The days kept piling on top of eachother, the days got longer and longer. The rain took forever, the flood seemed neverending, and the wait after the flood took even more time. I felt impatient just reading about it.
If I can tell you anything I know undoubtably about Noah... it is that he is one patient fella.
I thought through what Noah must have been thinking those 40 days and nights as the whole world became flooded... did his faith waiver? Or was he sure that God was going to come through exactly as He said He would? For as scary of a sight as that flood must have been, I can only imagine how difficult it would have been to cling to what God said and trust that his family and himself would be safe.
As I read the story with new eyes, eyes that were not swayed by reading this story in the past, I realized that in the moments of the story that it seems like the rain is ending, or the flood is receeding, it is often a false alarm. And then there are more days and more waiting. There is constant waiting. In the beginning I thought the storm and flood were the worst of it, but there was so much waiting to come that would put all that to shame.
In the end, as much as I can tell, it took 10 1/2 months to see God's plan come to be. And it wasn't just 10 1/2 months of waiting for a job, waiting for a spouse, etc. It was 10 1/2 months of waiting to be on dry land and not chilling in a boat while its a frenzy of chaos outside where no one survives but you. If any situation is trying to your patience and pushes your own understanding far out the window, I would think it would be that one.
I realized that in some ways, nothing shows ones faith like waiting. Not waiting anxiously, waiting with hesitation, waiting because of fear, or waiting because you are forced to... but willingly and joyfully waiting because God leads you or tells you to wait. Listening to God is the start of it all. If we don't listen and we aren't willing to wait and be obedient... then where is our faith at anyway?
