Why Wait?

DEVOTION

GENESIS

WHY WAIT

Gen 8:6-12

6 After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark 7 and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 9 But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. 12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

NIV

Although we did not deal in the preceding section regarding the ark coming to rest on the mountains of Ararat, it has done just that. Noah knew the waters had receded enough that ark was no longer floating freely upon the waters. It seems by the account of the days of the month we are told about in the preceding section, after the ark came to rest the waters receded for another ninety-nine days before the tops of the mountains could be seen. But Noah did nothing yet, as he waited another forty days before checking out if it was safe to leave the ark. The use of the raven is not sure, but we know the raven is a meat eater, at least now it is, and it must have found some floating dead flesh to both rest upon and eat, as it did not return to Noah. The dove, however does not eat flesh, and therefore finding no food it returns. Three times he sends out the dove, twice it returns. Once again the scholars of old are preoccupied with the numbers, forty and seven, making much of the them in relationship to the seven days of creation and the forty we are so familiar with in the desert. But there is something else here that begs some research.  Noah is waiting. Why does he have to go through all this procedure to know when it is safe to leave, can’t he just look out the window? Could he just go out on deck and check it out for himself? If God spoke to him about building and getting into the ark, why isn’t God speaking to him about when he should leave the ark? We have to jump ahead some verses and we see that God did indeed speak to Noah and tell him it was time to leave the ark. So all this waiting and testing with the birds was for what? Why didn’t Noah just sit and wait to hear from God when it was safe to leave the ark? Even though Noah found favor in the eyes of God, even though God told him because he was righteous he was going to be saved, even though God gave him all the instructions about building the ark, sent all the animals to him to enter with him, Noah still had to get engaged himself. Was he impatient? Did he not want to wait any longer? He had been cooped up in this ark with all these animals long enough and he wanted to know when it was safe to get out. He had enough of this sea faring life and wanted to feel the ground once more under his feet. But didn’t he think God would let him know when it was safe to leave? Here is the lesson for us. There are times when we are certain we have heard from the lord regarding some situation in our lives and we respond. But then we start second guessing about the next situation in our lives. We get a little impatient with God and we want to start doing something to fix our situation. But we have to give Noah credit, although he wanted to do something, he still waited and waited inside the ark until he heard from God that it was time to leave.  It might be acceptable for us to check out various ways to solve any unpleasant situations in our lives, but we should certainly not act upon them unless we hear from God. There is a key here, Noah waited until he heard from God. We need to wait, even though the situation might be a little tiring and we want to do something about it, to relieve the situation, we need to wait until God speaks and tells us our next step. Surely nothing Noah could have done would have hurried the receding waters. Certainly it did not matter if the dove returned empty or with an olive tree leaf. Noah still waited until he heard from the Lord. It would seem that no matter what we do, it is when God speaks, it will be safe to act. It might well be appropriate for us to send out feelers, checking to see if this is right or that is right, but to act before we know we have heard from God is simply unsafe. It is definitely not in our best interest. God knew when it was going to be safe for Noah to take the next step and he knows when it is best for us to take that next step. Until we hear from him, we wait. But if we have heard from him, we need to take that step.