When the television star of MASH, Alan Alda, was 8 years old, his dog died. As they were burying the dog, Alan’s father tried to stop him from crying. So he said, “Maybe we should have him stuffed.” And that’s exactly what they did. They kept the stuffed dog on the porch, and deliverymen were afraid to make deliveries (Newsweek, 2-28-05, p. 69; www.PreachingToday. com).
That story inspired the title of Alda’s book, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, and it illustrates the need to move on after a crisis, to accept the change that has come, and to make a better life because of it.
The question is: How? When something terrible happens, how do you get on with your life? How do you recover and move on? How do you make a better life because of it? How do you move on after the death of someone you love, or after a diagnosis of cancer, or after you lose your job? Well, If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 9, Genesis 9, where Noah and his family rebuilt their lives after a world-wide flood.
Genesis 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth (ESV).
What is God doing here? He is giving them hope for the future. Look down at verse 7
Genesis 9:7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it (ESV).
God is telling them, “You are not going to die in this strange new world. You are going to have children, grand children, and great-grandchildren, who will fill up the whole earth. After the terrible tragedy of a world-wide flood, God is giving Noah’s family something to look forward to. He is giving them purpose. He is giving them hope for the future.
And that is absolutely necessary, if you’re going to recover and rebuild after a crisis. You need hope. You need purpose. You need the assurance of a positive future. Otherwise, you’ll just curl up and die.
Singer-songwriter Sandra McCracken talks about boarding an early flight to Florida for a “music gig.” From a west-facing window, she says, “I found myself ruminating over some troubling circumstances that were pending resolution.”
It was dark as they ascended through heavy clouds. Most of the window shades were closed in the cabin. A little time passed, then someone on the east side of the plane opened their shade across the aisle from her. The morning sun shot a blaze of pink light across her face, and the sunlight lifted her spirits.
She looked back to see the view out the west-side window. It remained predominately dark. She had been so wrapped up in her tiny scope of vision that she hadn’t realized the sun had crept over the horizon. One side of the aircraft was glowing with light, the other was still in the shadows.
McCracken comments, “Perspective has a way of shifting our experience. On any given day, I could make a list of my anxieties, but the morning light shining on the east side of that airplane reminds me that I could just as easily make a list of the good gifts that God has given me. Sometimes I choose to look out the dark side of the plane, into the shadows, and I focus on what is broken or needs repair. This is essential to know… but I can get stuck there.”
She continues, “But no matter which window I looked out, all the while I was strapped safely in the window seat of that airplane. And all the while the pilot continued to steer the plane toward our destination. In spite of our shifting perspectives, we have a destination. God has gone before us to lay out a good plan for our lives (Jer. 29:11, Isa. 30:21) —Sandra McCracken, “Finding Grace in the Sunrise,” Christianity Today magazine, October 2019, p. 28; www.PreachingToday.com.
God has promised: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).
God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. That’s not just a Christian cliché. It really is true! If you know Christ as your Savior, God really does have a wonderful plan for your life.
Count on it. Anticipate it. Look forward to it. My friends, if you want to recover and rebuild after a crisis, that’s where you must begin. The fact that you’re still around means that God is not done with you yet. So depend on Him. Believe Him.
TRUST HIM TO PROVIDE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE.
More than that…
TRUST GOD TO PROVIDE HELP IN THE PRESENT.
Rely on the Lord to be that “ever-present help in trouble.” Believe that He will supply your every need. God provided for Noah and his family.
Genesis 9:2-3 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything (ESV).
God supplies food for Noah’s family—not only vegetables, but now He supplies them meat. Evidently, up until this time, people were vegetarians, but now God adds meat to their diet. There is only one prohibition.
Genesis 9:4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood (ESV).
God prohibits them from eating raw meat. Why? Well, obviously, uncooked meat could carry deadly diseases and wipe out Noah’s entire family. But more importantly, God wanted to teach Noah’s family the importance of life. Since God had just destroyed almost every living thing in a flood, they might think that God regards life as “cheap,” but He doesn’t. This prohibition against eating the “lifeblood” of animal demonstrates His respect for life. It is not something we should treat with contempt. Instead, we must learn to value life wherever we find it. Sure, animals make good food, but that doesn’t mean we can show contempt for life. That’s made very clear in the next verses.
Genesis 9:5-6 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image (ESV).
Animal life is precious, yes, but human life is sacred, because human beings are made in the image of God. My friends, no matter what the evolutionists say, we are NOT like animals. NO! We are like God. Therefore, no one has the right to take another person’s life. We can kill and eat the animals, but we cannot kill each other. And if one of us does, then someone else has the obligation to slay the murderer. That’s what the text says: “By man shall his blood be shed.”
The sacredness of human life is not an argument AGAINST capital punishment. On the contrary, it is an argument FOR capital punishment. Human life is so sacred that to take a human life requires the highest penalty.
Do you see what God is doing here? He is providing the protection of human government. He is providing a means of security from the violence that plagued the world before the flood. Now, a prohibition against murder can be strongly enforced.
In the late 1890’s, Emperor Menelek II of Ethiopia was fascinated with the United States’ new method of executing criminals—the electric chair. He was so enthralled, he ordered three electric chairs to be sent to his country.
There was only one problem. Electricity had not yet been introduced to Ethiopia. So when the chairs came, he decided to use one of them as his royal throne. Imagine a king sitting in an electric chair, ruling his country.
It’s funny, but it pictures what human government is all about. It sits on capitol punishment as its God-given mandate to protect the sacredness of human life from those who would destroy it.
God provided everything Noah and his family needed—food and protection—and God wants to do that for you, as well. He is Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. Every good and perfect gift comes from Him (James 1:17). He richly provides us with everything (1 Timothy 6:17). He meets all our needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19). All you need to do is ask.
Mark Ashton-Smith, a lecturer at Cambridge University, was 33 years old when he went kayaking in southern England off the Isle of Wight. There, he capsized in treacherous waters. He clung to his craft, reached for his cell phone, and called the first person that came to mind, his father. It didn't matter to the desperate son that his dad, Alan Pimm-Smith, was at work training British troops in Dubai 3,500 miles away. He knew his dad would get him the help he needed. Immediately, the father relayed his son's cry for help to the coast guard installation nearest his son's location. It was less than a mile away, and within 12 minutes, a helicopter arrived to rescue the grateful Ashton-Smith (Reuters News Agency; www.PreachingToday.com).
That’s what you do when you’re in trouble. Call on your Heavenly Father. He is an ever-present help in trouble.
On February 1, 2003, Evelyn Husband lost the love of her life, Rick Husband, in a national tragedy. She was standing with the other families of the space shuttle Columbia’s crew, waiting for her husband to return home. The shuttle was just minutes from landing at Cape Canaveral when NASA's mission control lost contact with the shuttle crew.
The next few moments were a blur of events: video images of Columbia breaking apart over the Texas skyline, NASA officials scrambling to move the family members away from the view of the television cameras. Evelyn remembers looking at the faces of her son, Matthew, and daughter, Laura, then 7 and 12.
That’s when Evelyn found that even in the midst of intense suffering, God is faithful. She said, “Deep inside, I knew God was going to walk me through this somehow. I knew it, because He had walked with me through other crises earlier in my life” (Corrie Cutrer, “Finding Purpose In Pain,” Today's Christian Woman, Jan/Feb 2004; www.PreachingToday.com).
God was her ever-present help in a time of trouble. Trust Him to be your ever-present help, as well. If you want to recover and rebuild after a crisis, trust God to provide hope for the future, trust God to provide help in the present, and #3…
TRUST GOD TO PROVIDE HEALING FOR THE PAST.
Depend on God to replace the pain with His peace. Rely on God to heal the hurt with the ointment of his love, and believe that He will restore your joy again.
That’s what He did for Noah and his family. Put yourself in their shoes. Your home has been swept away in a huge tsunami or hurricane that has engulfed the entire world. Everybody you know is gone. Now, you are left alone to survive in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy.
You’re grateful to be alive, you think, but what kind of a life is this? Every time it rains, you will be haunted by the memories of that terrible tsunami, worried that it will happen again. Then God speaks. Look at verse 8
Genesis 9:8-17 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth” (ESV).
Do you see what is God doing here? He is starting the healing process. He is taking away the sting of a painful memory, so it need not ever haunt them again. God assures them that He will never flood the earth again. And every time it rains, he puts a rainbow in the sky to remind them of His promise.
Now, don’t miss the significance of the rainbow. The word for “bow” is the same word used in other parts of the Old Testament to describe the soldier’s battle bow. When a soldier went to war, he would take his battle bow to shoot deadly arrows at the enemy. Then, when the war was over, he came home and put up his bow.
Well, that’s exactly what God is doing here. He had gone to war against humanity because of their sin. He sent a flood to wipe them all out, but now the hostilities have ceased. The war is over, and God is no longer angry. So He goes home and puts up His bow.
My friends, that’s what the cross is all about. 2 Corinthians 5:19 says, “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” You see, at the cross, God unleashed the fury of His anger against your sin. Now, the hostilities have ceased, and God is no longer angry with you because of your sin.
Now, you can experience His peace. Now, you can enjoy friendship with God, if you come to Him in faith and accept the forgiveness He offers to each one of us. Please, if you haven’t done it yet, accept His forgiveness today, and find the peace that only He can give.
Like He did for Noah, and like He’s done for countless others through the cross, trust God to heal the pain of your past. Let Him take away your sin. Let Him forgive your past. Let Him heal your hurt.
In his novel Remembering, Wendell Berry tells the story of a Kentucky farmer named Andy Catlett. One warm summer evening, Andy and a group of neighbors are helping a younger farmer bring in a harvest of corn. Andy himself operates the corn harvesting machine.
At one point, the machine jams and draws Andy’s right hand into its gears. Later, his wife asks him “What have you done to yourself?” With deep shame he replied, “I’ve ruined my hand.” Andy feels defective and pushes away the very people that could help him heal and rebuild his life.
Eventually, Andy Catlett shares the shame of his hand injury with another farmer and fried Danny Branch. Wendell Berry writes, “They learned how to work together, the one-handed old man and the two-handed. They know as one what the next move needs to be. They are not swift, but they don’t fumble. ‘Between us,’ says Danny Branch, ‘we’ve got three hands. Everybody needs at least three. Nobody ever needed more’” (Wendell Berry, Remembering: A Novel, Counterpoint, 2008, p. 13; www. PreachingToday.com).
Many people can relate to Andy’s battle with shame, perhaps some of you. They have their own version of the phrase “I’ve ruined my hand.” They have their own way of feeling defective and their own community to hide from.
If that describes you, please look to the Lord to heal your hurt, to redeem the shame of your past, and even use it to be a blessing to others. Trust the Lord with your life!
If you’re going to recover and rebuild after a terrible loss, trust God to give you hope for the future, trust God to give you help in the present, and trust God to provide healing for the past.
In Sri Lanka, there is a centuries old, beautiful and complex rock fortress, called Sigiriya (see-gee-ree-yah) with amazing frescoes that are painted on the rock walls. Sri Lankans consider these and the site itself a national treasure.
Even so, some offended villagers vandalized the frescoes. As a result, officials had to call in many experts to restore them back to their original state. Thankfully, they succeeded in their painstaking efforts (“Fresco disaster at Sigiriya in 1967,” The Daily News, 11-1-03; www.PreachingToday.com).
Sometimes, God’s people go through damaging experiences. Even so, they discover that God is in the business of restoring those damaged periods of their lives. Discover it for yourself. Call on Him and ask Him to restore you!
