The Patience Of Noah

We all know that the story of Noah and the Ark is a testament of obedience.  Noah built a huge, out of this world, boat that would have seemed impossible in his day, because God told him to.  He built this ark because God was about to flood the whole earth.  Water was going to pour down from the sky, which had never been seen before, and Noah was in charge of saving animals and his family.  There have been movies and books depicting this story.  There have been suggestions as to how hard this would have been, and the scrutiny he would have dealth with from all the other people.  We can safely say that Noah had huge faith when he said yes to God.  He was not concerned about what anyone else thought but God.......a true story of obedience.  Until a few days ago that is all I ever saw in this story, but God opened my eyes to a story of more than obedience, Noah is also a story of patience.

Noah was now 601 years old.  On the first day of the new year, ten and a half months after the flood began, the floodwaters had almost dried up from the earth.  Noah lifted back the covering of the boat and saw that the surface of the ground was drying.  Two more months went by, and at last the earth was dry!

Genesis 8:13-14 NLT

I guess for some reason I never really paid close attention to the length of time Noah was in that boat.  I must have skipped over Genesis chapter 8!  I always thought it rained for 40 days and nights then God dried up the land and Noah and his family stepped out onto dry land after waiting a couple weeks for the dove to come back.  I was way wrong!!  

It did, in fact, rain for 40 days and nights.  The flood waters covered the whole earth for 150 days until God decided to start drying things out.  At this time the ark came to rest on the top of the mountains of Ararat (v. 4).  It still took two and half more months for the water to continue to recede and other mountains to become visible (v. 5) After this it was still another four and a half months before Noah and his family stepped out of that boat.  All of them must have been so tired of living with animals in a stinky, poor ventilated, wooden boat!  For a whole year Noah waited for God to tell him when this story would finally reach dry ground.  I wonder if Noah ever doubted?  Like me, did he ever waiver and wonder if God was going to stop the flooding?  Did his family start to question why he was so obedient?  A whole year on that boat, did anyone ever wish they had just drown in the flood or lose faith?  I can just imagine the discussions had.  The prayers sent up and all the things they learned in that year as they waited.  Knowing that they were the only living people on the whole earth and that they had the only living animals with them.  It is a fascinating story.  Some may think too fascinating to be true but our God works in fascinating ways!  I believe He could have done all of that in a much quicker time frame, but for reasons only God knows, Noah and his family were forced to wait it out.  An amazing testament to patience and waiting on God's timing.  Just like Noah, we too must be willing to wait.  Even when things seem to drag on, and as satan tries to make us lose hope, we must hold onto our faith and wait on God.  

Wait patiently for the Lord.  Be brave and courageous.  Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.

Psalm 27:14 NLT