LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Accepting God's Timing
"And the dove returned to him at evening time; and behold, she had an olive leaf in her beak; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from over the earth. And he waited yet another seven days, and sent forth the dove, which returned no more unto him. And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year of Noah, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the waters were dried up upon the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the earth was dry" (Genesis 8:11-13).
Noah and his family lived through several months of crisis during the unfolding of the flood. Cloistered for a long time, they began to despair and longed to get quickly out of the ark, that kind of ship of salvation that delivered them in the midst of destruction.
The fountains of the waters, of the deep and of the heavens having closed, one hundred and fifty days having elapsed after a flood that lasted forty, and knowing that at last the ark had come to rest quietly upon a mountain, Noah made the first attempts to leave it and go out upon the open land forty days after the ship came to rest upon Mount Ararat.
Several times he tried, but the results were in vain. First he sent a raven to inspect, and learned that he still could not get out. Then he sent a dove, with the same result. A week later he sent it again, and the result was still negative. Until he sent it for the last time and knew that the waters had receded. But it was a long time later that God gave him the command to leave the ark. Could God have dried up the water more quickly to allow Noah and his family to get out of that confinement sooner? Of course he could have, but he didn't!
Noah should have been patient. God had His set times and Noah had to learn to submit to those divine lapses, set by God in His sovereign will. Why? Perhaps so that, many years later (today, for example), we would understand that, in spite of our impatience and desperation for certain things to happen, we must understand that God has perfect control over all the circumstances that afflict us.
God has perfect care of our lives, beyond our fears.
(José R. Frontado).