What would it be like to live on an ark for over a year? Noah and his family were crowded together with all sorts of animals; I can imagine that sometimes tempers were frayed and living conditions were hopelessly difficult. I’ve often wondered if God sanitized the environment in some way, or if it was just like living in a shut-up barn for months? At any rate, it was a seemingly endless year from the time the Lord shut the door on the ark and God told Noah he could leave the ark for dry ground.
None of us like to experience the silence of God, although surely it is something all of us experience from time to time. It seems, from the biblical account that God did not dialogue with Noah during the time Noah was in the ark. Did Noah feel abandoned, or secure in the knowledge that God was saving him and his family from destruction?
Chapter 8:1 says, But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. I’m sure God hadn’t literally forgotten Noah during the 40 days and 40 nights of rain, and the 150 days of flooded ground. But the writer of Genesis, in his concise phrasing of v. 1 clearly conveys how Noah may well have felt – forgotten by God, if not abandoned by Him. Job, another upright man, who experienced God’s silence with soul-searing intensity, poetically expressed his sense of abandonment, but also faith: …if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. (Job 23:8-10) Perhaps Noah, the one upright man in his generation, could have echoed Job’s remarks.
Job also expresses the feelings that God Himself may have felt during this time of silence and separation from his creation: You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made. (Job 12:15) How amazing to think that God enjoys his relationship so much with us, he longs for us!
My imagination perhaps works overtime as I think about this story, trying to get into Noah’s mind during his time of isolation. I cling to the comforting words, But God remembered Noah…. The waiting did not stop even at this point -- it took months for the waters to recede, but God sustained Noah’s faith through his emissaries, the raven and the dove. (See Genesis 8.)
What did the earth look like when Noah and his family disembarked? Was it as fresh and new as it had been at creation? However it looked, Noah’s first response was to worship God. In spite of the strains and stresses of life in the ark, Noah’s first thought was gratitude to God for His mercy and redemptive care.
It would be helpful to talk with Noah about this time of silence: How did you deal with it, Noah? Did you ever doubt that God was going to continue to care for you? Was the fact that He had given you such a clear indication of His plans enough to sustain you through the silence, the darkness?
When God gave Noah the news about the destruction of the earth, and His redemptive plan for Noah’s family, He gave Him a promise: But I will establish my covenant with you. God didn’t give him a whole lot of information, but it was a promise that Noah believed. By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. (Hebrews 11:7)
Noah challenges me. He suffered through the silence of God and had so little information on which to sustain his faith. But, thank God, he was sustained until God opened the door to fully restored communion with Himself—and Noah’s response was worship.
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