Nothing to see here

Our confirmation class just went over the story of Noah and the flood.  As part of the learning I had the kids listen to a narrative version of the story and right down thoughts, questions,  and insights they had as the heard to story.  As usual they had some good ones.  Of course the obvious question was, "why?"  Why did God kill everyone and everything?  Taping into my vast knowledge of the Bible I responded with, "why do you think God did it?"  They had some good responses, but what I like the most was when we looked at characteristics of God in the story.  I asked them to tell me some traits God displayed...anger, frustration, sadness...compassion.  Huh, God kills everything on earth except Noah's family and a 2 animals of every kind and we call that compassion?  That's like burning an ant colony and leaving one or two to start over.  Doesn't sound like compassion to me.  

Well it is compassion if you consider that God could have just obliterated everyone and everything and started over completely.  God gave us a second chance.  Of course we talked about this story being literally true and the possibility it is simply a story to give us a better idea of the way God works and how God wants us to live.  Either way we are to find out what God wants us to learn from this story.  "Don't make him angry," was one response I liked.  But we tended to focus more on the compassionate side of God allowing a way out and promising never to destroy the earth again with a flood.  

Then I asked the tough question, "Is it much different today as it was back when the flood happened?  Are we as a human race doing much better?"  What do you think?  Hard to imagine people were treating each other worse back in the days of Noah.  So why doesn't God just wipe us out again and start over?  Maybe because he promised not to, maybe because He continues to work through us to make us better people, maybe because God doesn't have the energy to start over again.  The truth is we don't know the mind of God, but what we do know is that God has provided a way for us to be in direct relationship with Him and that's through Jesus.  The death and resurrection of Jesus shows us all just how much God loves us, and it is because God loves us that much we should be working to spread that love to everyone.  We were created in God's image and we have that ability to share a glimpse of God with everyone and anyone.  The question is are we willing to do it?  God gives us all kinds of chances to get it right.  Will we grasp one of those chances and let others too?  Let's hope so!