Genesis 8:1
And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark… and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged.
What a beautiful verse this is.
After all the noise of the storm, after all the long days of silence, after all the bobbing and bouncing and waiting, these words come like sunlight through a cloud:
God remembered Noah.
That does not mean God had forgotten him and then suddenly said, “Oh, I need to check on Noah.” No, the idea is that God had Noah on His heart the whole time. Noah may have felt forgotten. Noah may have wondered what the Lord was doing. Noah may have heard no fresh word for a very long season. But through all of it, God remembered him constantly.
That helps me.
Because there are seasons when we feel shut up in the ark. We are in the place where God told us to be, but it is dark, cramped, noisy, and uncertain. The storm keeps rolling. The waters keep moving. Heaven seems quiet. And in that silence, the enemy whispers, “Maybe the Lord has forgotten you.”
But Genesis 8:1 answers that lie.
God remembered Noah.
And God remembers us.
That is the key for the times when we feel like we are just drifting, when we are so tired of the waiting, when we are near despair and cannot make sense of the silence. We may not understand what God is doing, but we can know this: He has not forgotten us for one moment.
And I think one of the best ways to steady my heart in those seasons is to do exactly what Jesus told me to do when He said, “Do this in remembrance of me” in Luke 22:19.
At the Table, I remember that He remembers me.
As I take the bread and the cup, I remember the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I remember that if God never spoke another fresh word to me, He has already spoken loudly and clearly for all eternity at the Cross. Calvary settled forever the question of whether He cares. Calvary settled forever the question of whether He remembers. The Cross says He does.
So when I do not understand His silence, I go back to what He has already said.
I go back to the body broken for me.
I go back to the blood shed for me.
I go back to the place where love spoke without a single doubt left behind.
Then the verse moves on.
God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged.
The Hebrew word there is ruach, the same word that can be translated wind or spirit. That is beautiful, because it takes us right back to Genesis 1:2, where the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Here again the world is covered in water, and again the Spirit moves. And when He does, clarity begins to come. The waters begin to settle. The land will soon appear.
That is still how it works.
Water in Scripture often pictures the Word, and it is when the Spirit moves upon the Word that things become clear again in my own life. I can read the Bible coldly and walk away with information. But when the Spirit of God moves across the pages of Scripture, suddenly what was blurry becomes clear. What was troubling becomes steady. What was dark begins to open up.
The world starts making sense again.
Beloved, maybe that is exactly what you need tonight. Maybe you feel like Noah, shut up in the ark, with more questions than answers. Then hold on to this: God remembers you. And ask the Spirit of God to move again across the waters of the Word until dry ground begins to appear in your own heart.
He has not forgotten you.
Not for a second.