Gen 7:¹³ On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark.¹⁴ They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind,everything with wings. ¹⁵ Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. ¹⁶ The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord shut him in.

God shut Noah and the animals in, in order to shut out the waters of the flood from coming into the boat.  In other translations, this verse says ‘The Lord sealed them inside’.

God did this in order to protect Noah, his sons and everyone and thing in the Ark.  Only God can shut you in and shut out the devil that is seeking to devour you.  Reading this again, made me to understand that sometimes, things will seem as if they are not going your way, but it is because God is shutting us in from some tribulation.

When things happen to us, we are quick to blame the enemy and bind the enemy but sometimes, it is because God Himself who is keeping us away from evil.  Noah had a covenant of protection with God; the Jehovah Roi.

We know that God is a good God and sometimes forget that because we are in Him and He in us, He looks after us as a mother hen does its chicks and as such will keep us from calamity and evil.  The flood lasted for 150 days; Gen 8:3 At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, ⁴ and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. ⁵ The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.   Like anything that has been damaged, it takes time for everything to come back to normal again.

If you are going through a tough time, seek God’s face in order to know if this situation is from God or not.  Don’t be hasty to bind the enemy, especially if it is God Himself who has shut or sealed you in.  It could be that He wants you to spend more time with Him… I don’t know but do seek His face.

If we say God is our Father, we then have to trust Him with whatever is going on in our lives and not panic but believe that He will bring us out of the difficult situation that we are in.  Our God is faithful; He cannot deny His nature; hold on to His Word for you.  If you are going through one sickness or the other, keep repeating Gen 15: 26 He said, “If you listen carefully to the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you.”  

Our God is not a wicked God; however, could it be that He shut divine health away from you, in order to get you to surrender to Him, to seek Him and birth your healing ministry from your place of pain?  One thing I do know is that our God is a God of purpose and He does not do anything by accident.  If He has shut you in, He has His reason and the sooner you find out from Him about his reason and purpose for you, the sooner you will come out of your situation.  The story of the flood that we are looking at today makes us to realise the situation could linger for as long as God permits it.

May God shut us in from any form of evil; let God shut us in the Ark of protection and the Ark of compassion.