Genesis 7: 1-10…..God speaks, Noah obeys.

Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him.
Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.

Comment: I believe that this is a true record – some don’t. But let’s assume that it is true and just let the emotions which must have flooded the minds of the Noah family. I’ll mention a few and you can let your mind wander if you choose to do so.

• God said you’re good enough – I’m going to kill off everybody else. He might not have had grandkids but surely he was close to some of his relatives! Hope and expectation, sorrow and doubt must have jostled his mind. It is easy to say that his trust in God would have made it all smooth, but he was as human as you and I.
• He probably saw animals, birds, bugs, butterflies etc that he had never seen before. They all came along maybe jostling, maybe orderly but two by two. He didn’t organize it; he didn’t have to cull them. Had he ever seen a dragon lizard before? Where did the kangaroo come from?
• What about when the first drops began to fall and it changed to pelting rain like he’d never seen or felt before. Maybe some came running as the rain started and he had to shut the door on the faces, maybe some were his friends.
• Doing God’s will isn’t always as easy as ‘eating a piece of pie’!

Prayer: Give me courage and the strength to obey You always, My Father God.