It feels like the world’s longest road trip. 🚗 You’ve been there: Dad is losing his patience, the family dog 🐶 is antsy in already cramped quarters, and the kids keep asking, “Are we there, yet?”

You finally get to your destination, but you have to wait even longer before you can get out of the car. 🚙 Will this trip ever end?? 😩

No, this isn’t your summer vacation. 🌞 It’s only a year’s long trip on Noah’s ark . . . 🛳️ the trip that feels like it will go on forever.

While so much art 🎨 romanticizes Noah’s ark, it was most likely not a pleasant ride. Think about it — he's in this boat full of animals 🐘🦒🐍 that are smelly, loud, and crowded.

But then: “God remembered Noah.” 🌈

When God remembers, it's always tied to an action.

God remembers us even if we are on a boat surrounded by death itself. ⚰️

We see that in our baptism — each day the old Adam dies and the new man rises. 🌿 Just as God continued to be with Noah, so God continues to be with us in the ark of the church ⛪ (which exists in a world that smelly, hurtful, and awful). 🌎

To find out if it’s okay to leave, Noah sends out birds. 🕊️ A dove brings back the olive branch of peace that God’s wrath has receded.

Noah and the fam can FINALLY get off the boat! 🎉

He offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving. 🙏

God then repeats what he said at creation: “Be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” 🌱

God sustains his creation through family. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

Then, God makes a promise. Even though creation is still fallen, God promises that he will never destroy the earth in this way again. 🌏

And the order of creation will continue: “while the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.” 🌿❄️🌞🌙

God is being merciful to a world corrupted by our sin. ❤️

We have a God who sustains creation in the midst of death and he becomes death himself. ✝️

Because we remember the death and resurrection of Jesus, it lets us deal with the messy side of sin and death because we know that God has not forgotten us. 🙌

Contributor Rev. Harrison Goodman is the Higher Things Content Executive.

Contributor Michelle Bauman is the Director of Y4Life.

#higherthings #lcms #lutheran #noah #genesis