Reflections from January 5, 2011

God's sorrow for His creation of mankind becomes evident with the wickedness of the people. Angels that had fallen were taking women and having children, and there was a general wickedness and perverseness on the earth. God set out to destroy His creation and all the animals.

But God found favor with Noah, and we read in Genesis 6:9, 18,
"Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God." God went on to tell him, "But I will establish My covenant with you;"
Noah was a man after God's heart and he was the one that was chosen to continue mankind's existence, as well as the existence of all the animals.

God's favor was still evident in Genesis 7:1,
"Then the Lord said to Noah, 'Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen all that you are righteous before Me in this generation."
Noah had a tremendous task to do, build an ark to house the world's animals in a time that he would receive nothing but ridicule for his actions. How lonely that must have felt. But he hears God's words "you are righteous before me". How uplifting that must have been!

Once the flood was over and the water receded enough to leave the ark, the first thing that Noah did was build an alter to God. We read in Genesis 8:20-21,
"Then Noah built an alter to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. The the Lord said in His heart, 'I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done."

This was quite the natural disaster. When we think about events today, we see how bad they are, such as the tsunami that occurred in the far east, but this event covered the globe! The destruction that Noah saw when leaving the ark must have been phenomenal; but the first this he does is build an altar and worship God. This act reaffirmed for the next generation the value of life and the need for people to follow God's ways. Even though people today continue to rebel against God, and even though the curse of Genesis 3:15-19 is still with us, creation is still to be valued and managed wisely.

We end with a praise of Psalm 104:31,
"May the glory of the Lord endure forever; May the Lord rejoice in His works."

Blessings to all