From the Beginning: A Devotional Commentary on Genesis (IV)

I've read the Noah's Ark story any number of times before, but something sort of struck me recently in a fresh way. In Genesis 8:13, it says that "By the first day of the first month ... the water had dried up from the earth, and Noah 'removed the covering of the ark' and saw that the ground was dry." In my mind, I picture Noah already stepping out, onto long-awaited dry ground. But then in 8:14, it says, by the 27 day of the second month, roughly 57 days later, the ground was completely dry, and then God told Noah to come out of the ark (v.15).

In other words, he saw the ground was dry on day one, month one, but had to wait 2 months (approximately) before God told him to come out. I'm just speculating, but I expect it was agony for Noah, waiting those 57-some-days in the Ark, staring day after day at the dry, inviting mountainside of Mt. Ararat, but not yet released from the Ark to go enjoy it.  This is a bit of an allegorical reading, I admit, but it got me thinking about the times in my life when "the ground" so to speak, of what God's doing in my life, "looks dry," but God's not ready, yet, for me to step out onto it. Sometimes in ministry, for instance, or in my family life, maybe, or in my long-range-life-planning, let's say, it may look like God's opportunity is right there, dry as a bone and shining in the sun, and just waiting for me ... and yet, God hasn't yet said to me, like he did to Noah: "'Okay, now, step out of the Ark and into it." 

May we all have both the wisdom and the patience of Noah, today, as we wait to be "released from the Ark" (again, so to speak, whatever "waiting in the Ark" may mean for you or I today). May we, like him, have the wisdom to know when the time's right to step out, and the patience to wait until it is.