I am not a good swimmer. I can keep my head above water well enough in a swimming pool by a creative combination of poorly executed but well timed swimming movements, but put me in the ocean and I am way out of my depth almost immediately. I can not figure out how to duck under waves correctly so I always get rolled around and pummeled into the sand; I’ve taken to just retreating to shore when the waves get “too big” (aka taller than shoulder high) (aka still small). I also refuse to go out deep enough that my feet can’t touch the ground. Not because of sharks, I just feel uncomfortable in wide open spaces and will always gravitate towards the corner or by the door. The ocean is obviously a very, very wide open space with no corners except the shore, so feeling exposed on all sides AND beneath my feet all at once is just terrifying.

Add to my poor swimming skills and fear of the ocean my complete inability to sail or navigate a ship by anything including GPS and the stars, and you have all the ingredients for an absolutely terrible mariner.

Despite all this, sometimes I get the distinct sense that God has set me on a ship and placed me on a course navigating strange waters towards a yet unknown shore. Because I dislike the ocean, feeling like I’m adrift on the waves always makes me feel a bit melancholy and dismayed.

It’s comforting that He has ordered my steps (Proverbs 16:9) and that He is continuing a good work in my life (Philippians 1:6), but did it have to involve the feeling of being forgotten in a landscape with which I am utterly unfamiliar?

I think as Christians we probably all end up in this situation at some point, whether you relate to the ocean analogy or not. You might feel like you’re in a cave or a deep forest at night, and it’s too dark to see the path before your feet. Or perhaps you’re in a valley and you don’t see how you’re going to get out. It’s the sense of first, believing that God has placed you there intentionally and then secondly, looking around and saying “OK but where am I supposed to go now? And why are we going this way at all?”

I recently came across an interesting verse in Genesis 8. For context, God has already called a man named Noah by name to build an ark, foretelling that He would destroy the earth and all within it with a flood, and that this ark would preserve his family and pairs of animals so that they would be able to repopulate the earth. When Noah finished building, the Lord spoke to him again and told him to enter the ark. Having heard the voice of the Lord twice already, Noah certainly would have entered the ark confident he was on the right path.

Then the rains came. And the floods. The ark was lifted above the earth probably none too gently when “all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.” (Genesis 7:11b) For forty days they rose higher and higher above the earth. Hearing the drumming of the rain, cracks of thunder, and possibly even the wailing and screaming of those left to die must have been incredibly frightening to those inside the ark.

For 150 days, Noah and his family waited in the ark while the waters sat on the earth, and God did not speak to Noah.

For 150 additional days, Noah and his family waited in the ark while the waters receded, and still God did not speak to Noah.

For a further 70 days Noah and his family waited in the ark while the earth dried out, and still God did not speak to Noah.

Grand total: 370 days. THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY DAYS.

Could you imagine? After hearing the voice of the Lord, after hearing the drumming of the rains and winds and the death of so many living creatures… silence.

I imagine the silence was a relief at first. But after time, they probably longed to hear something, anything, indicating what was coming next. In silence their imaginations may have run wild. In silence they may have struggled to believe that they were not forgotten and lost.

In Genesis 8 though, tucked in between the first and second periods of 150 days, we find an interesting verse.

“But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark.”

Genesis 8:1

“But God remembered Noah…”

From Noah’s perspective, God had not said a word. Yet God placed this verse here to let us know that He had not forgotten Noah, and the next verse tells us what happened because God remembered: “And God made a wind blow over the earth and the waters subsided.” (Gen. 8:2)

We see a similar scenario a few chapters later when we meet Abraham, a descendant of Noah’s son Shem, who became the patriarch of the entire Jewish nation. God speaks to Abraham many times, initialing calling him to leave his homeland, and later promising him that he would have a son by his barren wife Sarah and that through this son Abraham would be the father of nations. God also bound Himself to Abraham and Abraham’s descendants with a wildly spectacular promise: “‘And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.’” (Gen. 17:7)

Abraham obeyed God’s initial call, and left his homeland and traveled to the land of Canaan, the promised land. He brought with him his entire household, including his nephew Lot. Lot lived with Abraham for a while but after a time their two households grew too large to share the same land and Lot left and lived in the infamous city of Sodom in the Jordan Valley. The two men maintained a relationship, as is evidenced by the fact that when Lot is kidnapped by enemy kings, Abraham pursues Lot’s kidnappers with his own men throughout the entire country and eventually rescues his nephew.

So when the Lord appeared to Abraham at his tent and declares that “‘…the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.’” (Gen. 18:20), Abraham rightly understands that the Lord is planning judgement on these cities for the sins they have committed against Him, and feels compassion for the residents of the cities, including his nephew Lot.

In boldness, standing in faith and knowing to whom he is speaking, he says to the Lord: “‘Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’” (Gen. 18:24-25) And God agrees to spare the city for the sake of fifty. Then Abraham lowers the number to forty-five, and God agrees again. Abraham continues to lower the number until God agrees that only ten righteous are needed to save both cities.

This one man, Abraham, stood boldly before the Lord and bargained with Him on behalf of the wicked.

And God, the Creator of man, the Lord and Judge of all the earth, cooperated with him and allowed him to do so.

The text does not say, but considering Abraham’s compassion and his personal knowledge of Lot he felt it was probably likely that between both cities and Lot’s household the Lord would find ten righteous people. He probably felt confident that God would honor His word and spare the cities. If you are familiar with the story, you know that God did not find ten righteous and only three, Lot and his two daughters, were saved and even then only because the angels of the Lord took them by the hand and hustled them out of the city when they delayed. When they had escaped to the hills the Lord overthrew the cities and utterly destroyed them.

The next day, “Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.” (Gen. 19:27-28) The text does not give us Abraham’s reaction, but we can imagine that he was left with a number of questions. He knew the Lord would not sweep away the righteous with the wicked, so did that mean Lot no longer lived in Sodom? Or was Lot not considered righteous? Was there really no one righteous among all the people of the cities?

We do not know if Abraham ever found out what happened to Lot. But again we find here an interesting verse.

“So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.”

Genesis 19:29

God remembered Abraham.

God remembered Noah.

Because He remembered them, He took action. Action they may not have ever known about, or that they may not have recognized as Him until much later. But He still moved on their behalf.

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ– by grace you have been saved– and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show us the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-7, emphasis mine)

In Isaiah the Lord says, “‘Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.’” (Isaiah 49:15-16)

“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” (1 Peter 5:10)

Take courage. Hold the course. God, being rich in mercy, has already taken action on your behalf. You are not forgotten.