The story of ‘Noah and the Ark’ is a Sunday School favourite, but when we re-read it as adults, we can see that it is really quite a dark tale. The wickedness of humanity has got so bad that God actually regrets creating us. The image here is not of an angry God, reacting in fury, but of a sorrowful God, with a troubled heart.

The Lord will not allow his Spirit to reside indefinitely in such wicked and sinful people. Our very existence is a gift of God to us; the Spirit that gives us life is his to command. The people in Noah’s time had lost sight of this. They were determined to live a life without a relationship with the God who created them, and so were destroying themselves because of sin.

The trouble in God’s heart over what had happened to his special creation reminds us that he is not a distant dictator, sitting back and watching mankind unravel with a knowing look on his face. No. He is a personal, living God, intimately involved in his own creation. The sin and rebellion of mankind hurts God, pains him, troubles his heart. Far from being angry and vengeful, God is actually incredibly patient in the face of generations of people he created rejecting him, dismissing him, insulting him and ignoring him.

Noah alone stood out as a righteous man, and he received God’s mercy. God must deal with sin, but his mercy means that his blessing is preserved in spite of judgement. When God sent the flood, he did not destroy creation, but he did destroy the sin that had infected it, leaving Noah, his family, and his ark full of animals to carry God’s blessing forward beyond the judgement.

As God looks around at his creation today, his heart must surely be troubled by sin, just as it was in Noah’s day. If we, as Christians, are people after God’s own heart, then we will be troubled too. May we stand as righteous people in the face of so much unrighteousness, and offer hope of blessing and mercy to all, through Jesus.

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NEWBOLD COMMUNITY CHURCH