by Sandy Kirby Quandt

Waiting on God’s perfect timing can be difficult, wouldn’t you agree?

In re-reading the account of Noah and the ark recently, it struck me how patient Noah was, not to mention how obedient.

Noah did everything God told him to do. He not only waited for the day God shut Noah, his family, and all the animals inside the ark, but he waited inside that boat for what may have seemed forever until he could once again walk on dry land.

His total time inside the ark was over one year.

I imagine once the flooding ceased, Noah was anxious for the waters to recede, the land to dry, and leave the ark.

Yet, Noah waited for God’s perfect timing. He sent out birds to test the earth to see if the land was dry or not, but he didn’t leave the ark until God said it was okay to do so.

There are times I’m impatient. Lots of times. I can’t see why in the world things haven’t gone according to my timeline. I’m ready to hop out of this ark and get on dry land. Like my dad used to say, “Let’s get this show on the road. What’s the hold-up?”

Well, it would seem the hold-up is God. He knows what’s best. He is Sovereign. His plan is perfect. He doesn’t want us sinking up to our hips in leftover mud from the flood. He wants us to walk safely on dry land.

While it can be difficult waiting on God’s perfect timing for whatever it is we’re waiting for, we might need to remember our view from the window of the ark isn’t God’s view. God can see all the mud holes that might swallow us up.

He’ll tell us when the time is right to step outside. We just need to be like Noah and wait in patient obedience.

Easier said than done.

Any flood waters you’re waiting for God to dry up so you can proceed out of your ark?

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God did not forget about Noah and the animals with him in the boat. So God made a wind blow, and the water started going down. God stopped up the places where the water had been gushing out from under the earth. He also closed up the sky, and the rain stopped. For one hundred fifty days the water slowly went down. Then on the seventeenth day of the seventh month of the year, the boat came to rest somewhere in the Ararat mountains. The water kept going down, and the mountain tops could be seen on the first day of the tenth month.

Forty days later Noah opened a window to send out a raven, but it kept flying around until the water had dried up. Noah wanted to find out if the water had gone down, and he sent out a dove. Deep water was still everywhere, and the dove could not find a place to land. So it flew back to the boat. Noah held out his hand and helped it back in.

Seven days later Noah sent the dove out again. It returned in the evening, holding in its beak a green leaf from an olive tree. Noah knew that the water was finally going down. He waited seven more days before sending the dove out again, and this time it did not return.

Noah was now six hundred one years old. And by the first day of that year, almost all the water had gone away. Noah made an opening in the roof of the boat and saw that the ground was getting dry. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was completely dry.

God said to Noah, “You, your wife, your sons, and your daughters-in-law may now leave the boat. Genesis 8:1-16 (CEV)

I wish you well.

Sandy

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