What’s not to love? The colours! The smiles! The rainbow!
There are lots of reasons why Noah is one of my favourite characters. First of all, he was a good guy. In Genesis 6 God is lamenting the evil in the world. “But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.” He goes on to say “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.”
That’s a role model. That is how I’d like to be, a righteous woman, blameless among my people and walking faithfully with God. This was a story I could attach myself to and when I read it for the first time I was hooked.
And besides, it’s a visual story, and I am a visual person. Plus it would seem like an impossible feat, to build an ark? But that is what God asked him to do and he was OBEDIENT—gathering all those animals? Noah was amazing! And we can’t even imagine how long it must have taken him, he had PERSEVERANCE. God talked to Noah about bringing a flood, there had never been a flood before but Noah BELIEVED God, even though he didn’t know what a flood was. He had FAITH.
I want to be like that: OBEDIENT, PERSEVERING, BELIEVING, HAVING FAITH.
Well, as you probably know, the flood continued for 40 days and 40 nights and finally God’s work was complete, the waters dried up and then he made a promise to Noah and the whole world that he would never send a flood like that again. And he sealed the promise with a rainbow – a rainbow! Who doesn’t love a rainbow? I love them and never miss out on a chance to view one, to find one, and gaze at it and remember this wonderful story.
Again, a rainbow appeals to my visual senses. It is a memorable image and spectacular.
Wow! What a mighty God we serve!
There is one more reason why this is one of my favourite bible stories. My husband Cliff and I have been married for 25 years now, but before we found each other we were both divorced. We experienced the end of a long marriage and the break-up of our families. It was heartbreaking, devastating, life-changing. But, when we started fresh, there was something special we did not lose in those divorces and that was our precious children. I pictured our new life as an ark, filled with us and with our children. I pictured our own very personal rainbow with the promise that God would never allow us to go through divorce again. And so it becomes a personal story for me.
Yes, the bible is hard to understand. But it is not impossible to find some stories, some characters that can speak directly into your life and inspire you and encourage you.
Keep on digging into that old bible. God will not disappoint you.
And if you haven’t got a good devotional book, I’ve got just the one for you – written by me!