25 February 2022
6 After forty days Noah opened a 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 nowhere to perch 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. 13 By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.(Genesis 8: 6-14)
Forty days after the summit of the mountains appeared on October 1 (verse 5), Noah released a crow and a dove from the window of the ark (verse 6-12). Noah has always acted according to the Word of God. Noah did everything God had commanded, and did so (6:22). He was always waiting for God’s Word. But at this time, the Word of God was not clearly heard, so Noah prayed and thought for himself and took what seemed to be the best. So he released the crows and pigeons from the ark to see if the water had drawn from the surface of the earth. I think there is a balance between the long-awaited actions of prayer and faith. Of course, it is important to pray and wait for God’s will, but unless otherwise indicated, it is important to follow God’s Will and God’s plan because they are already written in the Word. It’s about meeting the needs of the person in front of us, and I think it involves tackling the events and problems we’re facing.
This is similar to the apostles seeking God’s guidance in their daily lives and work, but when God did not show them any special revelation, they judged and acted on their own. And I think we are the same. If the apostles were always waiting for the revelation of God, the gospel of Christ would not have spread. But the apostles acted and worked by faith. They worshiped, prayed, adhered to the teachings of Jesus, and evangelized every day (Acts Chapter 2).
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.(Acts 2:46,47). They worshiped every day. Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. (Acts 3: 1) . As a custom, they went to the temple and prayed to God.
Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah. (Acts 5:42). They evangelized as a custom and continued to preach that Jesus was the Savior. The habit of becoming a rut may not be good, but habits is very important in our Christian life and repeat the same thing faithfully every day, every week. God rejoices in faithfulness.
Stephen Covey (1932-2012)
By habituating what we think we have to do, our life will improve. There is a book called “The 7 Habits” written by Stephen Covey, which is very helpful. The book emphasizes that in order to be publicly successful, we must first succeed privately. It describes the importance of making a promise to ourselves and keeping that promise. That is a habit. It is to overcome oneself and to cultivate self-control. By making promises to ourselves, such as getting up early, practicing at fixed times, studying, and writing, and keeping them, we will develop habits and begin to succeed privately, which will lead to public success.
Noah and his family were in the ark for about a year. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. (Genesis 7:11). By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry (verse 13, 14).
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