The Value of the Closed Door

This morning before I opened God's Word I prayed for wisdom. I asked the Lord to give me understanding. Although I am just writing on this blog as a form of personal accountability, it is open for others to read. It would be so easy to misunderstand a truth from God's Word, misinterpret it's meaning and then write something here that could cause confusion, or worse, lead someone astray. I feel like I should include a disclaimer: These are the thoughts of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of the Author. I pray that they will be His Word to me, but as I learned yesterday, error is possible. (To clarify - for those of you who read yesterday's post, on further research the Enoch in Genesis 5:18 is not the same Enoch in Genesis 4:17. I have now removed that information from my post.) Please give grace as you visit and know that I am not a Bible scholar, nor would ever claim to be. I'm a girl seeking to know her Father.

I also don't believe in going down rabbit trails. There are some things we will never understand in God's Word. That's the mystery of God. If we could explain everything about Him and the reasons why He allows certain things to happen then He would cease being God. There has to be an 'otherness' about Him. Nor can we explain all the actions and decisions of those we read about in the Bible. For example, today I don't know why Noah cursed Canaan, the son of Ham because of Ham's actions. I think maybe the whole story hasn't been included here. Possibly even Noah reacted in a moment of harshness and embarrassement. Have you not been there yourself? Have you ever handed out a punishment to your child that was greater than the act deserved at a time of peronsonal anger or because you were dealing with other issues totally unrelated to the offense, but it triggered your response? I don't think we have to try and figure out the how's, when's, where's and why's of our reading. We need to just bow the knee and ask the Lord what He wants to speak to our hearts today. This is not about gaining knowledge, but knowing Him.

Today as I read His Word, three things were impressed on my heart. The first truth is found in Genesis 7:16. This is what I read, "Then the LORD closed the door behind them." So often I pray for an "open door", but there is just as much value in the "closed door". There are times when the Lord, out of His love and mercy must close a door for our own good. We can't see the future and we maybe don't understand, but the closed door is for our protection and safety. The closed door keeps the storm from drowning our lives in a sea of unknowns. Oh, how I need to thank Him for the closed door. God will open it in His time. Genesis 8:15,16a says, "Then God said to Noah, 'Leave the boat...'". As Ecclesiastes reminds us, there is an appointed time for everything. We need to trust the Lord.

As the account of the flood was given, I realized for the first time that it rained for 40 days (OK...that part I knew); there was another 110 days of floating on the water before it came to rest on the mountains of Ararat, taking us to about 5 months that Noah and his family have been in the Ark. Now comes another 7 1/2 months of waiting before the Lord gives permission to leave the boat. Think about that. I'm sure the 5 month time seemed like an eternity, but at least you were doing something...you were going somewhere...you weren't just sitting still. But, almost another 8 months of waiting! Wouldn't you just love to know what happened during that time? I'm guessing Noah and his family were kept busy with the care of the animals, but I think I'd be getting a little stir crazy. I'm not good with confinement. I'm not an elevator girl. I don't like having things closed all around me. I wonder if all on the boat waited with peaceful hearts, trusting in the One who had closed the door.

Finally, I loved reading the accounts of the descendants of Noah. What thrilled me was seeing the lineage expressed from two different books of the Bible, Genesis and 1 Chronicles, and the validity from two different writers. This was my first taste of seeing this in reading the chronological Bible. Although I have never doubted one word of God's Word, I would think seeing this could help skeptics and naysayers as more than one eye-witness pens the same account.

God's Word is true, trustworthy and timely. Praying that He will speak to you personally as you spend time with Him today.