In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month – on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. (Genesis 7:11-13 NIV)
Darkness surrounded me with no hint of dawn yet visible on the horizon. I lit a few Butter-cream candles, their sweet fragrance filling the room as I sat at the Well to wait for Him whom my soul loves. As I waited thoughts began tugging at the back of my mind. I recognized them right away by the knot they tied in my insides and even as I sat I felt my brow crinkle in the center which in turn made my spirit feel weighed down.
Most of the things troubling me were out of my control. But that didn’t stop me from worrying about them anyway. Life had begun to feel as though I had a huge bunch of helium filled balloons in hand during a wind storm. The more I tried to hang on to all the strings the more they began to sway in the winds of circumstances and other peoples choices and one by one the strings had begun to snap. I sighed as I began to dwell on these “worry-thoughts” turning them this way and that; over and over. I was unaware as I sat in the pre-dawn stillness that a great cloud had formed overhead and drops of worry began to rain down on me until I was literally flooded with them; my heart submerged; the current threatening to sweep me away.
A passage of Scripture came to mind; something about taking every thought captive. I opened my Bible and found what I was looking for in 2 Corinthians 10:5 and I read it out loud, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” It was then I heard familiar footsteps. Startled, my heart looked around at all the unruly thoughts run amuck. I didn’t want the Lord to see me like this so I jumped up and splashed about in the waters of worry, scooping up the unruly thoughts and hurried to a far corner of my heart where I had been keeping the worries hidden away. I opened the lid and to my horror realized the storage place was filled to overflowing. His steps were drawing closer. “No time to clean this up,” I muttered, as I grabbed the edge of a worry trying to elude my grasp and quickly set it on top of the worry pile and closed the lid.
“What are you doing?” He asked. “Oh, just waiting for you.” I said, holding the cover down with one hand as I turned and quickly sat on the lid in an effort to keep my worries out of sight. “Come and walk with me,” He said. Oh how I wanted to jump up and follow Him but I was too busy sitting on my worries. If I walked with the Lord who would take care of my worries? It struck me then that I was worrying about worrying! It was then I remembered what a friend had said to me recently. It was a day I was wearing worry like a garment and she had pointed it out. The thought made me uncomfortable so I quickly pushed it aside and returned my focus to keeping my worries contained in the Lord’s presence. The lid jiggled a bit as the worries clamored for attention. I hoped He didn’t notice but who was I kidding. He noticed.
I followed His gaze and saw that my worry thoughts were poking out in every direction from underneath the lid. He came and sat down. It was then I noticed He was holding His Book in His hands. I sat quietly, expecting Him to speak about worry from His Word but my heart looked up in surprise as He read Genesis 5. It was a genealogy and I waited while He read the list of names of who had whom and how long they had lived. My ears perked up when He reached verse 21 and said the name “Enoch.” I knew about Enoch. He was a man known for walking with God. I could hardly wait for Him to get to my favorite part found in verse 24 which says, “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”
I had expected Him to stop and talk about that but He kept reading. Enoch had a son named Methuselah and he had a son named Lamech and Lamech had a son named Noah. I sat thinking about this genealogy as He proceeded to chapter 6 and began reading verse 9 which said, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.” My thoughts were dancing around in my head as they tumbled out. “Lord,” I cried. Enoch was Noah’s great grandpa! He laughed and then I laughed—I love laughing with Him, don’t you? So Noah took after his great grandpa: walking with God. Enoch had gone before Noah was born but still Noah must have heard many stories about great grandpa Enoch. And a spark deep in Noah’s heart had apparently been fanned into flame for the Lord.
As the Lord continued reading I tucked the golden nugget about Noah and Enoch into a pocket of my heart to ponder later. He told me how the world had been flooded by evil and how it grieved Him. I looked into the eyes of the One who gave all and saw something in them I could not describe—memories there from eternity past; things impossible to understand for human hearts. He went on to describe the ark and I could picture Noah taking notes on stone, and I giggled at the thought of me trying to remember all that detail about something I had never seen. I thought about how Noah had never seen rain and yet he did everything just as the Lord had told him. “Obedience,” I whispered softly and tucked the word into the same pocket of my heart that held the nugget about Enoch and Noah.
When He began reading chapter 7 verse 12, my heart leaned in closer not wanting to miss anything. “And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark.”
I pondered what He had read. God had provided their way of escape from the coming flood. They had been enclosed there. “Hmmm, enclosed in His provision.” Somehow that seemed important, so I tucked that phrase into the pocket of my heart with my other treasures. I sat quietly in the Presence of the One my soul loves and thought about Noah’s journey. It had begun long before He ever stepped foot on the ark. He had spent five hundred years cultivating an intimate walk with God
Then something the Lord said stirred in my heart, “On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark.” Hmm…together with his wife.” Not much is said about Noah’s wife. Pretty much all I knew was that she went with him into the ark. What did she think about it all? Did God tell her anything that He was doing? Did God give her assurance that all would be well? These thoughts stirred the flames of my imagination and I suddenly saw her in my mind’s eye. My lap top lay at my feet and I bent to pick it up as worries tried to distract me but ignoring their efforts for the moment I closed my eyes and my fingers found the keyboard and my thoughts sprang to life before me.
Leah stood and stretched before bending to pick up the cloth that held the seeds she had been gathering. She walked to where a large basket sat and carefully poured the seeds in with the others. She examined the remaining plants just to make sure she hadn’t missed any. “Finished,” she said to herself as she made her way back to the basket. She turned, taking in the view and decided to take one last walk through the garden.
She left the basket and slowly walked to the far corner. She loved this garden. She remembered well when they had settled here and she had chosen this little plot of ground as her own. Her husband, Noah was a farmer and all the rest of the land was his, but this little piece was hers, or at least had been. She walked to the seat that Noah had built for her in the corner underneath her favorite tree. In the spring there was a vine that covered the trunk of the tree; the yellow blooms looked like tiny flashes of light shining in the sun and oh the fragrance.
She and Noah had sat in the shade of this tree on many a summer evening watching the sunset after a long day of harvesting. All three of their sons had been married in this very spot. She took a seat on the bench and wondered how many times she had sat right here watching her husband walking through the fields talking with God. Noah was a godly and righteous man. She sat quietly, her heart full of memories too many to count. But one memory hung heavy in her heart. It was both precious and horrible all at the same time. Emotions came in a torrent and she looked off into the distance as it seemed too large a memory to be remembered in the confines of her garden.
The day had been unusually warm and she was kneeling down planting vegetables when Noah arrived. She looked up at him, squinting to make out his features in the sunlight. She would never forget the tone of his voice as he said her name. She recalled the sense of fear as it crept up her spine and her throat tightened and her stomach reeled as she immediately thought something must have happened to one of their sons. Shem especially was accident prone.
She reached for Noah’s outstretched hand and he helped her to her feet as he led her to the bench. She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes but it troubled her greatly. She began to worry before she’d even reached the bench to sit down. “Noah, what is it? What has happened?” She asked trying not to allow her imagination to run wild. Noah turned and picked up both of her hands in his as he spoke. He spoke slowly and she could tell he was choosing his words carefully. He went on to tell her all that God had said.
Noah finished and they sat in silence. It seemed to Leah that even the birds had fallen silent at the weight of the words. God was sending a flood to wipe out everything and everyone that lived on the earth. But Noah had found favor in the Lord’s eyes and they, along with their three sons and their wives would alone be saved. Noah was to build an ark. To refer to what was coming as a disaster was an understatement to say the least. It would sweep away everything she had ever known, including the garden in which she now stood.
Noah wasted no time getting started on the building project. He followed God’s plan to the letter. It wasn’t long and the neighbors noticed that Noah’s time was being filled by something other than farming. It was kind of hard to miss a giant boat in the yard. She smiled as she recalled the initial reaction of their neighbors. Noah used the opportunity to begin warning the people. He told them they needed to turn to God but they laughed in his face. As the years passed the taunts grew worse and even physically violent. They had become objects of scorn.
Noah preached what God had told him and the people grew worse, not better. No one showed any signs of softening. Evil seemed to have been unleashed. “Oh what a wretched place we live in,” she whispered to herself. She grew increasingly worried for Noah’s safety and that of her sons as well. Then she began worrying about other things. Would there be enough food to last them through the flood? Would they be able to fit all the animals and birds in the ark? Would they have enough food for the animals? Would the animals grow restless and break out of the enclosures? What if Noah or one of their children became ill? How did they know for sure the ark would float? What if it leaked? And what exactly was rain? These were just a few of the worries that plagued her days and troubled her dreams.
The day the ark was finished was bittersweet. While the ark was being built the flood had seemed like something in the distance, but to see it standing completed made it all very real. They stood looking at it, the wood gleaming in the sun. It was a stark reminder of what God was about to do. But more than that; as she stood there she realized it was a visible sign of God’s love and mercy toward a righteous man named Noah and his family.
A peal of thunder brought Leah back to the present. She had never heard thunder before and it reminded her that the flood was coming and time was short. Leah got up from the bench and hurried to pick up the seed basket. She gave a furtive glance heavenward at the black storm clouds that hung heavy in the sky as she lifted the seed basket and placed it on her right shoulder. She gave her beloved garden a last loving look before turning and heading in the direction of the ark. Noah spotted her and hurried to help her with the basket. A smile touched his lips. She was still lovely at 520 years old. He lifted the basket from her shoulder and took hold of her hand as they crossed the field to where the ark stood for the last time.
Leah looked into her husband’s eyes as they stood at the bottom of the ramp – searching his face for some assurance that God was indeed with them. He looked weary. The 120 years of building the ark had been hard physical work. Then there was the preaching that had only seemed to cause the hearts of the people to grow harder toward a God that had been merciful in waiting, giving everyone opportunity to turn to Him. In the end they rejected Noah’s words, rejected them and rejected God and His love. Noah took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead as he said, “Leah, it’s time to go.”
The words “it’s time…” seemed to hang in her heart as heavily as the clouds hung in the sky. “Time for what?” she wondered to herself. Time for the complete destruction of the life they had built? Time for the sweeping away of everything they had ever known. Time to leave behind all things familiar? Why hadn’t God told her what the plan was? And suddenly worry, mixed with fear flowed out of her heart and down to the very soles of her feet and held her fast to the ground on which she stood. All the “what if” thoughts she’d hidden inside seemed to hit her like a flood.
As she stood there submerged in worry she caught sight of Noah inside the ark. His head was bowed and she knew he was talking to God. As she watched she thought about Noah and his life. He had always followed God. He loved him. He worshiped Him. Noah trusted God and believed him. She had watched as he trusted God’s protection over him as he took God’s message to a horribly wicked people. He didn’t just say he trusted God, he lived it out every day and the ark was a towering testament of Noah’s walk with God. As these thoughts went through her mind she suddenly felt ashamed by her lack of trust which was evidenced with each worry.
She turned her attention to the ark. As she followed the curves of the base all the way to the top she began to see it in a new light. God had designed it and tasked her husband to build it. God’s design was big enough to hold two of every animal in existence along with all the food and supplies required, and one God-follower and his family. God’s design was strong enough to withstand the coming flood. God’s design was trustworthy. God Himself was trustworthy. As she thought about all the things the ark was designed to hold and do a thought occurred to her. It was also designed NOT to do things. It was designed not to leak. It was designed not to fail. It was designed not to fall apart under the strain and pressure of the flood. As she thought about all that God had designed the ark to do and not do another thought seemed to be whispered across her heart, her worries could not go with her into the ark. There wasn’t room for them inside God’s provision.
As she took her first steps of obedience she pictured the worries falling from her one by one as she walked. She left them in a heap at the bottom of the ramp to be washed away in the floodwaters by God Himself. Noah met her as she stepped into the ark of God’s provision and He wrapped her in his arms and God’s voice seemed to whisper to her very heart, “After the flood, there’s life.” And the Lord shut them in.
I closed the lid to my computer and looked up to see Him whom my soul loves looking off into the distance. I followed His gaze and saw a cross. It struck me then as I looked at Jesus and then at the cross that He was the provision – He was the only way to be saved. Not only that but through Him I had life. “Walk with Me,” He said. I realized then that I was still sitting on my worries but wanting to walk with Him, I opened the lid very carefully and picked up all my worries intending to take them with me on our walk. When I turned I found myself standing at the foot of the cross and Jesus stood holding out His hands, the ones with the dark scars in the centers. “Daughter,” He said, “If you are walking with Me those can’t go. Here, let me take them,” He said. I stood in His presence there in the shadow of the cross, my worries in my hands and began to tell Him about each one. Some of them made me laugh as it seemed silly there with Him to worry about such trifles. Others were harder to talk about and brought tears. One by one I laid them in His nail-pierced hands. It took a while but soon it was done and the worries were gone.
When I finished we spent the rest of the day walking together. I never wanted to stop. I thought about my grandsons and wondered if one day they would say, “I remember Grammy D. She walked with God.”
Later, as I lay quietly in bed thinking about our conversation that day I knew there would be more floodwaters to go through but God’s provision for me through His Son Jesus surrounded me and I was safely tucked in His hand so let the floodwaters rage. And as the land of dreams crept into my room cloaked in moonbeams I heard His voice sweet and low, “There’s life after the flood.”
An original Conversations at the Well
By Diana Morgan
© Copyright April 12, 2010
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