Genesis 7:6-12: a reflection

6Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came on the earth. 7Noah went into the ship with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, because of the floodwaters. 8Clean animals, unclean animals, birds, and everything that creeps on the ground 9went by pairs to Noah into the ship, male and female, as God commanded Noah. 10After the seven days, the floodwaters came on the earth. 11In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the sky’s windows opened. 12It rained on the earth forty days and forty nights.

After all the years of building and warning, the day comes. Noah, six hundred years old, goes into the ark with his family, and the animals come to him in pairs as God had commanded. For seven days nothing happens. Then the fountains of the deep burst open and the windows of the sky are thrown wide, and the rain falls forty days and forty nights. The long-promised flood finally arrives.

The quiet detail is that Noah is already inside before the waters come. His obedience, sustained over years when it must have looked foolish, put him in the place of safety before the storm broke. He did not wait for the first drops to start building. He had listened to God ahead of time, and when the day came, the door of refuge was ready and he was within it.

There is wisdom here about preparing in the calm for the storms that come to every life. The habits of trust and obedience you build now, when skies are clear, are what shelter you when the waters rise. More than that, God himself is the refuge; the ark points ahead to the safety he provides in Christ. Do not put off entering that shelter. Listen to God today, and be found within his refuge before the rain begins.

Lord, Noah was safe inside the ark before the first drop fell, because he had obeyed you through the long, quiet years. Build in me now, in calm days, the trust and obedience that will shelter me when storms come. And thank you that you yourself are my refuge in Christ. Draw me within your shelter, and keep me there. Amen.