Studying Genesis 6 – 9; Passage for Reflection: Genesis 6: 6 … NIV - The LORD was grieved that He had made man on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain.
My Journal for Today: I don’t think we, as fallible, ever failing humans can grasp the depth or height of God’s feelings when He either senses His creatures of grace living in sin to abase Him or living in sacrifice to honor Him. We’ve all been disappointed somewhere in our lives by disappointment when someone we love fails us. Maybe a wife learns that her husband has been unfaithful; or parents learn that their daughter is unexpectedly pregnant. Or a dad learns that his son is into drugs. Well, take those feelings of remorse and regret and magnify it by infinity to sense the extent of God’s anguish over seeing mankind’s extent of falling to reject the very God Whom had given them life.
God is both a God of justice and of mercy; and all of that is worked out in the Genesis account of Noah and the flood (i.e., Genesis 6 – 9) which I was led to study in my devotional time this morning. And by contemplating my wife’s feeling of anguish over the years of infidelity which I visited upon her over 30 years ago; and then, to think on the degree of her mercy, forgiveness, and patience to allow God to transform me from an agnostic fool into a loving and purposeful Christian husband gives me a picture, though only a reflection, of the feelings God must have had for mankind by allowing a remnant to live when man had so rejected God’s love in those centuries following the fall in the Garden.
F. LaGard Smith’s question at the end of his devotional today challenges me to reflect on God’s feelings about my sinfulness. He writes, ”When I repeatedly disappoint God, do I understand that I have genuinely and truly broken His heart?” But then, I need to add the other side of that coin of humanity. I need to understand just how much my God smiles with glee when any of His kids (and that certainly includes me) stands up for Godly righteousness or uses His enabling grace to overcome the temptations or tests which our spiritual enemies place in our lives. We have a God who feels for His created children; and we need to honor those feelings with choices which turn His anguish to joy.
My Prayer for Today: Lord, I so desire to make You smile today and be filled with joy, not sorrow, as I honor You with my choices. Amen
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