Grace That Is Always Available

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” (Ge 6:8 AV)

 

No matter how bad it may seem, grace is never truly absent.  God was angry with the whole world.  He was preparing a great flood to destroy the entire human race and anything that moved, breathed, or dwelled on land and sky.  Mankind had become so sinful the LORD could not tolerate it any longer.  The Bible tells us the LORD repented that He had made man on the earth.  He decided to flood the entire world to its highest peaks.  Before the flood, Noah had 140 years to fashion the ark that would carry his family and the animal kingdom for a year so the world could be repopulated.  During that time, Noah and his three sons preached righteousness, knowing what was coming.  They knew the world would cease to exist as they knew it.  All those whom they had come to know would not be alive all that much longer.  As they could sense the spiritual darkness descending upon them, I am sure they doubted God’s grace.  Common sense would dictate if almost all suffer, then all will eventually suffer.  I don’t know for sure, but there had to be a thought or two in the mind of Noah or his sons on the details of how they would be kept safe.  Especially as the waters began to rise and the ship began to ride the waves.  But here is the encouragement.  Even in the darkest of times, God’s grace is still available to those who will humbly walk with Him.

If we are not careful, we can live in the dark cloud of doom because of what we see around us.  A few years ago, there was a tornado that came awfully close to our church.  It was fascinating and extremely scary all at the same time.  We had some neighbors that heard the sirens and drove over to the church for shelter.  They lived in a trailer park right behind the church property.  I can remember standing on the front entryway and watching this storm blow in.  It was the weirdest thing.  The skies lowered and it got really dark.  Then the wind and rain came.  A person couldn’t even see across the road.  That was the normal part.  The weird part was, it was barely sprinkling on our building, but less than one hundred and fifty feet to our north, it was a solid wall of rain.  As the storm began to pass, the sun was brightly shining on our porch, but less than two-hundred feet to the north, it as solid wind and rain.  If I were to look at that storm and think what I saw also applied to me, I would have experienced a feeling of doom. 

Just because others may not be experiencing grace doesn’t mean grace has no effect on me.  Grace is both corporate and individual.  There is the corporate grace of God sending the rain on the just and the unjust.  There is corporate grace in that all have been given the grace of life.  But there is individual grace that comes regardless of the situations of others.  There is saving grace.  There is keeping grace.  There is grace for the ability to give.  There is grace bestowed upon one another.  The point is, just because we see others undergoing hardships does not mean we are destined to do so as well.  We may.  But we may not, either.  Think of the children of Israel while in bondage to Egypt.  For the most part, they escaped the harshness of the plagues sent on Egypt.  No doubt, as they saw the plagues descend, they may have thought themselves in harm’s way.  But God showed them grace even though they were surrounded by a lack of it.  This is Noah.  He found grace in the eyes of the LORD because he believed God and walked in righteousness.  That same grace can be ours in the midst of a lost and dying world that suffers because of sin.  The grace available to Noah is the same grace available to us.