01/11/2026
When your rescue story stinks:
I've been making my way through Genesis over the past couple of weeks and during that time, of course, I covered the story of Noah's Ark. Most all of us have been exposed to this story, we know about the 40 days and the 40 nights of the flood and the rainbow signifying God's promise to never destroy all of creation by flood again.
What we often don't think about is the fact that Noah was on the ark with his family and all of those smelly animals alot longer than 40 days. The Bible tells us the water surged for 150 days then it was another 150 days for the water to recede. We get stuffy in our homes and feel the need to open a window after a few weeks of winter. Can you imagine all of the "yuck" Noah and his family were surrounded by, with the inability to open even the smallest of windows. Yet, they were chosen and thankful to be rescued from the disaster the rest of humanity had to face.
Our personal rescue stories are all so different, and some of us have more than one. Some of us needed to be rescued because of choices we made and some of us were the victims of the choices made by others. Regardless, the story we tell, our testimony of God's love and rescue of us, often times involves some "smelly parts" The parts where our situations seem hopeless, scarey, dark and endless.
We like to leave these parts out because they're not easy to share, but these parts show God's willingness to to leave the 99 and rescue His lost sheep. These "smelly" parts let those, still in the dark, know there's hope, no matter how smelly the situation! The story of Noah's Ark wouldn't have mattered near as much to us if all we knew about was a big boat with a lot of animals and beautiful rainbow.
