This is where we need to be

Every new year presents us with opportunities for adventure and new beginnings. I know I certainly look forward to a fresh start. Some of us have the year planned out and under control, running as perfectly as a Swiss watch. Those people probably aren't reading this blog. This blog is for the rest of us.

I've always thought Noah must have had mixed feelings after spending a year in the ark.  Being in the ark would have meant:

• The discomfort of bouncing around in the huge ship in the storm--seasickness, perhaps?
• All the animals to feed and clean up after;
• The same seven relatives to talk to day after day;
•  Knowing that every friend, every person on the outside would have died in the flood.

When Noah and his family came out of the ark, they would have been in a completely different place, with no one they knew from before their time in the boat. Even if their surroundings appeared the same, they had been on the soak cycle for 150 days before the water started to recede.

Despite the mixed feelings they may have had about it, the ark was God's provision for Noah and his family, to save them from the great flood. There was virtually no other place where they would have been safe from the rising waters, other than inside that boat, with those animals and each other.

In the midst of our upheavals, God has designed protection and safe places for us to rest from our storms. Even if your storm is going to last a long time, he will bring you relief when you need it, dear one, in the forms you need.

Let this new year and new decade mark the beginning of a new cycle in our lives. Let this new year refresh our vision of God our Father through his Son, Jesus Christ, who paid our ransom with his life. Never forget that he fills us with his comfort and guides us through his Holy Spirit.

May his hope carry you through in your joy and in all your battles. And, at the end of your battle, he will receive you into his glory, like a jewel in his crown. To him be honor and glory forever.

And the water covered the earth for 150 days. But God remembered Noah and all the animals in the boat. He sent the wind to blow across the waters, and the floods began to disappear.

Genesis 7:24; 8:1