It's hard for me to think of Noah's and not think of the movie Evan Almighty. In that show, a modern day Noah, who goes by the name of Evan is told by God (Morgan Freeman) to build an ark. As you can imagine, all of Evan's friends and coworkers think he's nuts. In the end, spoiler alert, the ark saves lives and proves to be the work of God and they all live happily ever after. I've often thought of what Noah's friends and neighbors must have thought of him. Because I have a really hard time getting my mind around the accuracy of the story - all the creatures on a boat? for 40 days? I like to think of the ark story as more symbolic.
God told Noah to do something, and he did it. He didn't argue with God. He didn't doubt God. He didn't worry about what others thought of him. He just did it. No wonder God liked him so much. The fact that God was really angry with the human race is not so far fetched. He created us and we went hog-wild. No scruples, no ethics, no compassion, no obedience, no responsibility. Sounds frighteningly like today to me. I often wonder how God thinks about our society today. Everything is acceptable. Nothing is morally off base unless it's politically unsavory. It's a good thing for us, that rainbow appeared or we'd all be floating right about now. God made a promise that He would not destroy all human life again. I don't know how He keeps that promise. Maybe there are still some of us humans left who are flawed but still lovable. Abraham, who sounded surprisingly like my 13-year-old, made absolutely sure he understood God's plan for destroying the earth when he kept asking Him, "What if 50 are good, will you spare us? What about 20? What about 10? What about 1?" I believe there are at least a few of us who are good. In fact, I believe there are a lot of us who are good. As usual, it's the evil who get the spotlight.
I sometimes get disheartened when I read the news. Today, I read about how mass murders affect children. Why does this have to happen? Why do children have to deal with mass murders? The stories I read made me sick to my stomach. How can we as a society possibly survive? Oh, yeah. The rainbow.
I am sickened to hear about millions of babies killed in abortion. Babies. Other babies who are born, yet abused often to death. How can we survive this? Oh, yeah. The rainbow.
Hate crimes, bullying, weapons of mass destruction, How can we survive this? Oh yeah. The rainbow.
There are so many evil things out there that if we dwell on those awful things, we find ourselves drowning in despair. Instead, God gave us a rainbow to cling onto. Without that rainbow, without God's unending love, we will die. We will drown. Instead, for all who ask, he throws out that life preserver. Today's plan is to always look for that rainbow when I feel like I'm drowning. What a beautiful reminder that God is still with us even though we are all broken.
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