What’s Your Ark?

A couple of months ago, I started rereading the entire Bible again, this time going chronologically. I was expecting to just go book by book, but I was totally geeked to find a website that breaks the entire Word (New Testament included) into chapter-by-chapter–sometimes even verse by verse–chronological order. I think it’s wicked awesome, and I’m super pumped about it. Hashtag Bible Nerd (And darn proud of it).

I’ve also tried to really challenge myself to take my sweet time with each and every chapter. I can be a very task-oriented person; there’s just something so oddly and sadly satisfying about crossing things off a to-do list. Unfortunately, it’s easy for me to take that same approach to the Bible, thereby rushing through it just so that I can say that I read 20 chapters in a day; productivity–or the appearance of it–is highly seductive. Obviously, however, God’s Word deserves far more attention than that, and with my current system, I can spend upwards of three hours studying a single chapter.

Anyway, about a month ago is when I got to Genesis 6 through 8, which are about Noah and the flood, and because I took my time, I noticed something that I never had before, and it’s been on my mind since.

If you look at the dates provided in the chapters and do the math, Noah and his family were in the ark for about a year. Sure, that’s a minuscule time compared to the amount of time that his contemporaries, like Abraham and Moses, had to wait for things, and it’s a blink of an eye when you consider that he lived 950 years, but I also think that makes Noah’s story all the more comforting to someone living in our modern day. As much as I love and appreciate the life and faith of Abraham, for example, the fact that he waited until he was a hundred for his promised son is not always so comforting because few people live that long these days, while Abraham lived long enough to see his son celebrate his 75th birthday.

Think about Noah’s situation; really picture it.

He’s trapped in this boat; sure it’s a big boat, but it’s also jam-packed with probably thousands of animals. There weren’t exactly showers on the ark, and there certainly weren’t toilets either…if you catch my drift. And all those thousands of animals, well, they’ve gotta go, too. And according to Genesis 6, there was only one small window–understandably because otherwise water would get in, which basically defeats the purpose of the ark–but that also means practically no ventilation. And it was probably hot in there, too, with all those warm bodies.

Just let that mental image soak in for a moment.

Then we get to Genesis 8, where the waters begin to recede. Verse 1 tells us that God made a wind to push the waters away, and the word in the original Hebrew that is translated ‘wind’ is Ruwach, which interestingly is the same word used for the breath of life that God breathed into Adam in Genesis 2:7. Ruwach began humanity, and then it begins the “new” humanity. Super cool.

So then Noah sends out the raven and the dove, one of the parts that everyone knows, and after sending out the dove a third time, it doesn’t return, which indicated to Noah that the waters were at least dry enough for the bird to thrive. So then our inevitably filthy and stir-crazy friend peeks his head out and sees that indeed the waters had dried up (verse 13). Also inevitably, Noah was probably like “Sweet! Finally! Let’s blow this joint!” BUT we learn from the next verse that God didn’t tell Noah and his family to leave the ark until almost two months later.

“What? But that doesn’t make any sense, God! The waters are gone! The earth is dry! Why can’t they leave?”

The Bible doesn’t give us an answer.

Maybe the ground looked dry but actually wasn’t and would’ve swallowed them up like quick sand.

Maybe it hadn’t been long enough for food and crops to grow back yet, so God kept them confined and safe.

We don’t know the reason.

But here’s the thing: God does. And we can trust that He always knows best.

**Fun fact: the Hebrew word for the ark is the same word used for the basket that baby Moses was put in by his mother to save him from being killed by the Egyptians. So an ark is ultimately a saving vessel. Now the Hebrew word for the ark as in the Ark of the Covenant is a different word, but essentially, the Ark of the Covenant was also a saving vessel.

On the flip side, we have Exodus 23.

(Okay, I’m kind of cheating with this one because I’m still back in Genesis with my reading, but a co-worker posted this one on Facebook a couple months ago, and I was blown away by it.)

So this is after God presented the Ten Commandments and the other laws to the people of Israel via Moses, and then God tells the people that they’re going to be heading into enemy territory, but to not be afraid because God will take care of it. But then in verse 29, He tells them that it’ll take Him longer than a year to drive out the enemies because otherwise they’ll be overtaken by the beasts of the field–more people in the land, even if they’re Israel’s enemies, means more people to control the dangerous animal population.

In this case, God tells His people His reasoning. Does God normally do that? No, and understandably so when you try to think about things from His perspective (would you trust you? I wouldn’t). But I have no doubt that at least one of the reasons He did in this case was for our assurance and remembrance that YES, He does know what He’s doing, and He ALWAYS works everything for our good (Romans 8:28).

Now back to Noah. We don’t really know how Noah reacted to being in the ark for a year. We don’t really know how he reacted to being in the ark for two more months, despite the earth being dry. So maybe it’s not totally fair to try to speak for Him, and instead I’ll just have to leave those questions for when I meet him in Heaven.

But can I tell you how I’d react?

Not good.

You know how I know?

Because I often don’t react well when God asks me–whether directly or indirectly–to wait, especially when it doesn’t make sense to me, which is basically ALL the time. I’m a logical thinker and a planner, and my logic and plans and timing basically never line up with God’s.