Sometimes you have the impression that the world around you is downright collapsing. The things that seemed so solid begin to totter and sink into the floods. That is how it was for Noah too. His story is a unique example of how one can trust God to find the way through difficulties into a new life.

The ancient biblical story of Noah.
Known already from childhood.
Known already for years.
And so it is easy to overlook the actual message of the account.

It is a story of trust.
A trust despite years of difficulties,
blockages,
limits
and seeming impossibilities.

Noah trusted God,
that he makes no mistakes,
that he keeps his promises and
that he does what seems so impossible.

Noah took the risk with God.
Against the opinion of everyone else,
against mockery, scorn and shaking of heads.

Noah had to push through against all the incomprehension.
And for years he seemed to be wrong,
it seemed as if nothing would ever change,
as if the voices of the scoffers would be proven right forever.

But Noah held fast to the vision
that God had given him for his life.

And at some point the journey began.
A journey into the unknown, into the uncertain, into the new.

At first everything looked terrible, painful, destructive.
Everything he knew, in which he had lived, what was familiar to him,
he had to leave it behind …
but it was the only way into safety, into the new, into life.

At first everything was so bleak, so laborious, so irritating,
but at some point the light shone directly into his face
and to his astonishment he found that everything had changed
… he himself too.

The old life – his old life – no longer existed,
it had completely gone under,
vanished,
swallowed by the waves.
And with it all the rejection, the mockery, the scornful voices.

Everything was new.

And suddenly he perceived everything differently.
The light had changed everything,
everything that made up his life.

When his journey was over,
he stepped out of his safe shelter, his ark,
and went into a completely, absolutely, totally, comprehensively new life.

And he saw something he had never seen before.

He saw God's promise to him,
the promise of a new life,
of a genuine new beginning.
He saw the assurance of God,
that he would not withdraw his hand from him,
that it had been worth going on the journey
and trusting him alone completely.

He saw something
that made clear to him that it was a worthwhile goal,
toward which he had set out full of trust,
out of his old life,
his old relationships, ties and distresses.

He saw the sign of the genuine new beginning.

He saw the rainbow.

You can find the biblical account of Noah in Genesis 6:5 to 9:17

God has more for you!