January 3, Genesis 6-9:29

So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.  This how you are to build it:  The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.  Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top.  Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.

     Genesis 6:14-16

So Noah builds the ark.  Takes all the time and energy to build it according to God's exacting specifications -- the right wood, the right cubits and the right number of flowers.  The he goes to all the trouble to accommodate two every kind of living creature.  He does all of this.  And then....  He can't get the door to the ark shut.  The Bible simply says, "The Lord shut him in."  

did Noah know the Lord was going to take care of closing the door?  Or did he get right up to the point with all of the animals on board and then look at the door and go..."Oh, ah, now how are we going to get that door shut?"  

Had Noah and Sons, Inc. relied on its own know-how and skill to get it all together, to make it all happen, only to discover that...he couldn't get the door shut.  Not all on his own.  Not with the help of his sons.  Not even with sons and daughter-inlaws and the wife.  Then God shut him in.  Was it a last reminder before the rains came that even this great feat of Noah's -- and what an amazing feat it was constructing this huge ship -- didn't mean Noah could go it alone.  In the end, everything requires God.  Even the relatively mundane act of closing a door.  Especially when we're trying to close the door on the world.

The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.  The Lord grieved that he had made man....

     Genesis 6:5-6

It's curious to me that God grieves His creation when He knows and knew.  He knew its fallibility and He knows and knew exactly what it and He will do.  The notion of God's grieving somehow suggests that He thought, hoped, longed for us to do the right thing.  But how could He when He knows.  I'm perplexed by this.  Why give us another 120 years to get it right when He knows we won't?  Why?  For our benefit?  To show his long-suffering nature?  Who knows?  Him.  

And why destroy what He knew would go bad?  What did He expect?

Water.  God's weapon of mass destruction and...mass salvation.