God Remembered Noah: Timing, Trust, and a Transformed Earth. Genesis 8:1-5

In this episode, Jess Chou explores Genesis 8:1–5, focusing on the powerful phrase, “But God remembered Noah.” This passage reveals not forgetfulness on God’s part, but the moment when divine timing meets divine promise. Even in the silence of the flood, God was actively sustaining, guiding, and preparing both Noah and the earth for what would come next.

1. “God Remembered Noah” — Not Forgetfulness, But Faithfulness

• The phrase signals a turning point in the flood narrative.
• “Remembered” in this context reflects covenant faithfulness—God moving to fulfill His promise.
• Application: Seasons of silence are not signs of God’s absence but of His perfect timing.

2. The Ark: Drifting, Yet Directed

• From a human perspective, the ark drifted aimlessly on endless waters.
• From a divine perspective, it was always under God’s control and protection.
• The ark could have landed anywhere, yet it came to rest in a location suited for renewal and survival.
• Application: Even when life feels directionless, God is still guiding outcomes with precision.

3. A Strategic Landing Place

• The ark’s resting place suggests intentionality—on higher ground and in a region likely offering a stable post-flood climate.
• Increased volcanic activity following the flood may have contributed to atmospheric changes and an ice age, influencing where life could best restart.
• God’s provision extended beyond survival to sustainability.
• Application: God doesn’t just bring us through—He sets us up for what comes next.

4. A World Reshaped by Judgment and Renewal

• The flood was not only a judgment event but a geological transformation.
• Massive tectonic shifts likely occurred:
  • Mountains rising
  • Valleys sinking
  • Ocean basins forming to hold receding waters
• The earth Noah stepped onto was dramatically different from the one he had known.

5. Noah’s Perspective: Faith in the Unknown

• Imagine Noah inside the ark: darkness, uncertainty, the sounds of chaos outside.
• No visual confirmation of progress—only trust in God’s word.
• When the ark finally rested, Noah emerged into a completely transformed world.
• Application: Faith often means trusting God through disorientation, knowing He is leading to renewal.

Spiritual Takeaways

• God’s silence is not His absence.
• His timing is purposeful and precise.
• Even in chaos, He is governing outcomes.
• Seasons of upheaval may be preparing us for a new landscape.
• Trusting God means believing He is working—even when we cannot see it.

Reflection Questions

1. Where in your life do you feel like you’re “drifting”?
2. How can you reframe waiting as a season of God’s preparation?
3. What might God be reshaping in your life through current challenges?
4. How can Noah’s trust inspire your own faith in uncertain seasons?

Closing Encouragement

Just as God remembered Noah, He remembers you. His promises are not forgotten—they are unfolding in time. Even when you feel carried by forces beyond your control, you are still held within His purpose.

References & Resources

- Where Did All the Floodwater Go?

- Uncovering Antarctica's Ancient Rainforest

- The Genesis Flood Caused the Ice Age

- Was Noah's Ark

If this episode encouraged you or sparked your curiosity, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming deep dives into Genesis, the Flood, the Exodus, and more - with scientific and archaeological insight every step of the way.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Welcome back to Understanding the Light. Today we're going to be in Genesis 8, verses 1 through 5. So we're coming to the end of the flood now. And the verses say, But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat. He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the flood waters began to recede. The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky were stopped. So the flood waters gradually receded from the earth. After one hundred and fifty days, exactly five months from the time the flood began, the boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Two and a half months later, as the waters continued to go down, other mountain peaks became invisible. So a couple of things, different translations are going to say a couple of different words here. In verse 2, when it says the underground waters, and I really like that the tr living translation says that, because that's exactly where I'm coming from. But in other versions it says the fountains of the deep. That is the windows of heaven that are referred to. It also says in verse 4 that the boat came to rest in the mountains of Ararat. And that's directly from the Hebrew. The Hebrew words actually say that the mountains of Ararat as well, not Mount Ararat. And we'll get back to that as we go through the show today. So interesting stuff happening here. Verse 1, let's start with that. God remembered Noah. So it's important to understand here that at no point in time did God forget Noah. This is probably the closest English translation we have to what the Hebrew is actually saying here. The Hebrew word that's used here is the word Zakar. And it means that God is going to honor his covenant to protect and rescue Noah from the flood. So the time has come for the flood to end after, you know, the t the flood has been going on. And now it's time for uh to the the wrapping up to be done of the flood so that Noah can then disembark from the Ark. So that's really what this means is that God is continuing in His promise and His covenant to save Noah from the Ark and the flood. And so there's a time of promised time of restoration that's at hand. Um it reminds us actually of another verse uh that demonstrates God's promise and who he actually is. It's one of his major attributes at his core. Uh 2 Peter 3, 9, it says, God is not slow or unfaithful in keeping his promises, but he is patient and deliberately delaying in order to offer everyone time for repentance. And so this is talking in this context, it's talking about God waiting in the church age. So in the age that we are in right now, um, he's waiting so that everybody on earth has a chance to come to know him and have a personal relationship with him through his son Jesus Christ. Just like he did in the time leading up to the flood, um, Noah had uh, you know, almost a hundred years to build this ark, and during that whole time people had plenty of opportunity to repent and get on that ark as well. And so God delays sometimes when he has a promise that he's kept to you. And we see this in the Bible too, but I want to talk about it in a more personal level. There's there's probably been times in your life where you have been delayed, and maybe sometimes it's been even a painful uh or a difficult delayment, and and you know what God has told you, but you have he hasn't immediately responded in that activity that you expect him to respond in. Um, I can think of multiple times in my life, a really simple time. Uh, and a lot of times we experience these times because um God allows that time for us to grow. So we grow in our faith, uh, it builds our character and our courage, it also can build our integrity. Um, sometimes we have to walk through th relationships or uh things with other people that force us to take um, you know, uh a stand with honesty and and holding true, um, even in even when other people are not necessarily treating us well as a real result of that. And God allows this to build those muscles. And he also does this to protect us. So I can think of an example from my youth, and this is kind of a silly example, but it's it I think it'll drive the point home. Um we when we were growing up, I think I was about eight or nine years old, my unc my uncle was building a garage uh in Vermont. He was about four hours away from us, and we lived in southern Maine. And um, so my my father, you know, being his brother, they he said, Well, I'll come out and help you every weekend for this summer. So for eight weeks this summer, we we drove out, we got, you know, in the car at five o'clock on a Friday night, and we'd get there around 10 and then or nine, and then we'd um we'd come home on Sunday evening, and he would spend, you know, all day Saturday and some of Sunday helping my my uncle build this garage. And so that's you know, one summer that's what we did. And it was lots of fun to go out there because it was pretty wild in Vermont. Vermont is a very green and wild place, even wilder than Maine. Um, but there was this one particular Friday night that uh we just couldn't get in the car. Like we there was something that would come up or something that was forgotten, or we couldn't we had to wash something before we could pack it. And so it was about 6:30 before we actually got into the car, which you know made my parents very upset because that just puts us even further and later getting there, and you know, with four kids, getting them settled and to sleep, um, and and everyone's cranky, and then you gotta unpack the car, and it just it made for a very long day. So the car ride was fairly tense um in the beginning, and then we get about an hour down the road, and we start to see all these detour signs, and we're wondering, well, why are we having to detour? And what it was is um about an hour down the road we had to cross the New Hampshire main border and we had to go over this bridge to cross a river. And something had happened about an hour and a half before on the bridge, and either there was an accident or a part of the bridge had failed. I don't remember. The bridge is still there, so I don't think it failed a hundred percent. But anyway, they were rerouting traffic around the bridge because of some major issue that took place at the bridge an hour and a half before uh we got there, which would have been exactly the time that we would normally have gone across this bridge. And so my mother, you know, she was was reflecting on that and was saying, you know, that could have been whatever took place could have happened to us. And because we pass over this bridge at the same time every Friday night, and that was when this major issue took place. And all of a sudden, the sense of tenseness and kind of resentment about that had been building in the car about being late, now we our eyes were kind of open to oh, uh, we actually were protected, and so it became a one of relief and gratitude that we weren't we weren't involved in whatever incident took place. Now, I don't know, I mean, if there were people that were involved in an incident that took place there, um, you know, pray that they were okay. However, that at that moment in my eight, nine-year-old mind, um, I was very grateful that, you know, our family was safe and we were protected throughout that. And perhaps God had actually allowed us to be late in order for that protection. And so that's just a small example of how God can make us wait for things, and we don't always realize why. We don't know what he's doing, but then afterwards, when we have the whole story, we look back and we realize oh, that's what he was doing. And this is the same thing here. Um, there's a lot of activity that's taking place during the flood, there's a lot of volcanic and earthquakes, um, eruptions, and just a lot of dangerous things taking place. And so for the time being, Noah was safer on the Ark with his family and the animals that were there. God made this ark as a preservation, or he had Noah make this ark as a preservation of the living things, and he doesn't want to um put them in a situation that's going to cause them to be in danger. And so maybe you can think back to a time in your life where you have had to endure a period of difficult waiting. Maybe you've been wondering if he's ever going to show up, and then afterward you look back and you can see that he protected you from something or how he grew you or shaped you, or he did something really incredible so that nobody could deny that he was at work. These kinds of stories are our testimonies, and so yeah, we have our big testimony where we talk about how um we came to know Jesus Christ through salvation, but also these small testimonies really need to be shared. Uh, you need to find a way to share these these stories with people because this is what blesses people, this is what allows us to connect with others, and this is what allows God to really shine through you. So, anyway, God is now going to recover Noah or start to take away the act aspects of the flood so that Noah can disembark from the Ark. Um, the verse says that he sends a very big wind to cause the water to recede. So we can kind of get a visible, a visual image of that, you know, with a big wind almost like God blowing the water away. But scientifically, this actually, there's a lot to this scientifically as well that we can kind of dig down into and realize. So if you recall in Genesis 7.11, uh the fountains of the deep were opened up, or this underground water. It's likely that most of the water that was from the flood was previously stored under the tectonic plates. So instead of the ocean, the the ocean bottom being on the under the water, there was actually a great amount of water under the ocean bottom, and that sat above and kind of like in the middle. And then when the fountains burst forth, um the water just came up from underneath. If you remember from the very beginning when God made the earth, it actually was formed from the waters. So it's not hard to believe that um there was an amount of water that was underground, and even now we realize that there's water that sits underground, under the tectonic plates, um that's superheated, and it kind of like spews forth and like geysers and things like that. So there just was a lot more water under the earth, and the ocean sat up higher. Uh, we also know that the mountains we have today would have been much lower. So, because mountains are built from tectonic plates pushing into each other. Uh, so recent tectonic activity is what actually built up our mountains, but we also have kind of like uh a snapshot of what the past of a lot of these areas was like by taking dreep deep, we drill deep cores and we can actually look at the past kind of like rings on a tree, but we can look at the different soil levels and soil layers and comp compositions of the soils to see what the past was like um before the you know surface layers were present on these mountains. And it's really interesting, we actually find um jungle uh foliage in the mountain tissue, and then we also find marine fossils, meaning that these areas were once underwater, and we've kind of established that with the flood because being uh covered with water, but also they were much more tropical than they are now. So actually, tropical history has been found all over the earth, even in the polar ice cap. So even in Antarctica, there's remnants of a tropical jungle there, uh deep in the cores. When we dig up those cores and we look at the past and we get down into the soil, we actually see that there was a much warmer climate at one point. Um, either, you know, Antarctica moved there to the poles, um, or it was just warmer overall. So, what is this mountain building and this ocean deepening or whatever? Psalm 1048 is poetic, but it draws from an ancient understanding of the flood writings. So it says, At your command the water fled. At the sound of your thunder, it hurried away. Mountains rose and valleys sank to the levels you decreed. Then you set a firm boundary for the seas, so they would never again cover the earth. So he's there the writer is talking about the flood and literally what God allowed to happen in order for or to did in order for the waters that are on earth to stay on earth and not have to, because you know, we the Bible it says that there was a big wind, but obviously a wind is just going to push the water somewhere else. So where is the water going? Well, Psalms 104 actually gives us a little bit of an idea that he actually made space for the water to be on the earth in a way that it would never flood the earth again because the mountains would be too high and the ocean valleys and the other valley, the river valleys would be too deep. So the psalmist understood that Earth was much more, it was much more of a flatter topography uh prior to the flood. There probably were some hills, um, I don't know if they were grand mountains, um, and the oceans were probably not as deep. And so just the water could spread out a lot more. If we were to take our mountains now and flatten them all out and the ocean valleys risen up so that all of the water, um all of the land was kind of flat, all of the water on earth would cover the earth. Um, our planet is 70% water. It's not really difficult to realize that our water could cover our earth, especially if the mountains were lower and the ocean valleys were higher. So if all the mountains had been flat flatter, um the water, if all of these mountains had been flatter in the past and all of the ocean valleys had been higher in the past, then the water would have had to have been located under the tectonic plates in order not to cover the earth with a flood before the flood actually happened. Um and and so what does this have to do with wind? Well, when the water switched places with the land and the land spread out, all of a sudden you've got all this extra water that has access to the atmosphere and to temperatures. And so this water is going to start to cycle into the atmosphere, it's going to evaporate. And it's going to cause there to be rain, it's also going to cause there to be snow. And so the development of polar ice caps would have started happening as a result of this flood, uh, the major weather that took place during the flood. Well, whenever you get these polar ice caps, because we have an uneven heat, an unevenly heated earth, whenever you have an uneven heat, you have um low and high pressure, and that is what causes wind. And so wind would have started moving and it would have started taking this water uh in the form of clouds. It would have evaporated clouds. It also um some of this water froze into glaciers and ice caps. And then um the mountain building and the valley, the ocean valleys deepening would have caused the water to move to those places. And so all of this would have been um taking place at the same time, but what Noah would have seen was the wind. Uh, he would have were experienced, he would have experienced the wind knocking against the ark, um, and he would have has said that well the water moved as a result of the wind blowing. So in verse 2 it says, The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven stopped, uh, limiting the water on earth to what is present today. And we have no reason to believe that the water went anywhere else except for right where it is on earth today. And then in verse three it says the waters receded continually from the earth. It would have been a lot of water, and it would have had to um, it wouldn't, it doesn't take its time to to go into places, but as these mountains were building and these valleys were deepening, the water and the glaciers were forming, the water would have slowly receded away from the ark over time. So it's important to realize that the earth now had a vastly different surface to it. Uh, nothing was recog recognizable to it. Um so the climates across Earth surface would have been extraordinarily different from what they were before the flood. Um, polar ice caps forming that would not have been present before the flood because there just wasn't enough water available on the surface, now all of a sudden started to form, and they actually would have started to be uh form um glaciers. We have evidence of ice. So not only do we have evidence of tropical climates on multiple continents, including the ones that are currently covered in ice, we also have evidence of ice and that it once covered most of Canada and the United States. Asia was covered in ice, uh, Europe and South America were also had multiple areas covered in ice. So, where did this ice come from? And and scientists all know that this ice was there and they believe that there was an ice age, but they just can't agree on where or how it happened. So there's you know lots of theories about these ice ages. We know that they happened, but why and how did they happen? So there are two ingredients that you need for an ice age. You need cool temperatures in the summer, and you also need lots of snow precipitation, so lots of water cycle movement. So the Earth would have been quite cool as a result, or the atmosphere would have been very cool as a result of all of the volcanic activity that took place during the flood. So volcanoes erupt, and when they erupt, they erupt this big cloud of ash. Um, and this ash can tends to work its way up into the atmosphere, and it creates this big, dense like cloud that the sunlight cannot go through. And as a result, the the earth atmosphere cools way down, and then it causes much cooler temperatures. We've actually had examples of this in smaller modern um volcanic eruptions. For example, Krakatoa, uh, it erupted in 1885, I believe, and um the Victorian Victorian Europe experienced a much colder uh temperatures to the point where the Thames River in England froze over for the last time in 1895, and this caused major cooling. It shows up a lot in the literature that we read from Victorian England, such as like um Charles Dickens or um just other Victorian Victorian uh Jane Um Eyre, like lots of cold, cold, cold temperatures mentioned in Victorian writings. And this is a result of this volcanic eruption because you don't experience that now. I mean, sure, it gets cold, but it's not it's nowhere near the cold that it the horrifying cold that it was um in the late 1800s that you read about in like Charles Dickens. Um also uh volcano Tambora erupted in 1816 and it caused the year without the summer. Uh it heavy snow fell in June. This is in the United States. Uh frost caused crop failures in July and August. And so this one volcano erupts and it creates this dust cloud in the sky, and then the sun can't come through and heat everything up, and we end up having crop failures because of frost in July and August in most of the US. If you can think about that and how hot it gets in the US now, it's almost like we're due for another volcanic eruption. Um and then also this cold, cold air. Um, well, so the air was cold. However, where is the snow coming from? Well, we have this like we have so much more water available now out since since the upwelling of the deep that all this water would have started to work its way into the water cycle. Also, the water itself. Would have been much warmer than normal because of all the superheated water that came up that was near the mantle in the core of the earth. And so all of this warm water is now present on the surface. It's going to start evaporating, it's going to start getting moved around because of this cold and warm areas pushing the clouds, and it's going to create more snowfall. And so you end up getting more snowfall as a result of the water cycle and the increased evaporation because of the warm water. And then you get the snowpack, and it just is a cycle that starts to build over and over and over. It's also no reason to think that the volcanic eruptions did not that stopped as a result of the flood. There would have been a lot of tectonic activity going on. And we actually have this documented. And so right after the flood, you know, Pangaea is essentially breaking up, and we've got these huge earthquakes and volcanic activity happening as a result of that. And so it would have continued to keep the um the it would have continued to keep the atmosphere cool and and a much cooler period of time. So the ice age movie. So we we have this idea of an ice age as like everything's covered in snow and ice. And to a certain extent, a lot of the the original formation of the continents after the flood in the form of Pangea would have been covered in snow and ice. However, our earth is unevenly cooled. So the sun beats closer or beats more directly on the equator. And so that area is going to be warmer than the poles. This is, you know, we experience this now. Is the further south you move in the north and northern hemisphere, the hotter it gets. And it's the same idea. So not all areas would have been covered in ice like we see in the ice age movies, which are not, they're wildly inaccurate, inaccurate representations of what it would have been like during an ice age. But unfortunately, I think that's what everyone has as a reference to. I don't think anyone has like a real reference to an ice age, other than these little cartoons that Pixar has put out. But so the poles would have had plenty of snowpack, you know, as the earth was settling down. Well, there still would have been um summers. They would have been much cooler uh around the globe, and the winters would have been pretty darn harsh. Uh, they actually probably would have gotten harsher before they got better. Um, and that's just has a as a result of the the water cycle and how you know things tend to move in cycles and it kind of ebbs and flows. So we have evidence that the glaciers have, you know, they grew and they gouged out deep areas in the in the land. And there's there's places up in the northern United States and Canada where you can see evidence of this. They're called like moraes or morass or something. I can't remember exactly what they're called, but there's lots of glacial evidence that takes place, and then they recede, and they would have grown and receded and grown and receded over the course of summers and winters, you know, the cycle. Um, and so winters would have become more harsh as this these glaciers um you know grew, and then as they started to recede, the winters would have gotten easier and easier. We actually know um, well, from scripture, but also from archaeological evidence that humans tended, they actually the major civilizations were built in the Middle East first. Um and and you know, we we have lots of archaeological evidence of that, but also scripturally it says that humans remained in the Middle East at least for the first a hundred years or so until the dispersion that took place after the Tower of Babel. So we see a lot of thriving post-flood civilizations that are in areas that are now considered too hot and they're unlivable. So the Sahara Desert actually has evidence of um aquatic animals, and there's also rock art, and there's there's you know more evidence of jungles in the Sahara Desert that are now it's just way too dry and arid there to live. And this tells us though that at one point in time the Sahara was actually a much more um amicable place to live, like uh it would have been much more comfortable to live. So cooler, it would have been cooler, and as a result of that area being cooler, it would have been more, it would have been more comfortable for life. Whereas now it's just too dry and too hot to live there. So much more of the Middle East would have been more temperate than it is now. The waters would have begun the process of forming ice caps as it receded. There's probably a lot of tectonic activity still causing the ocean floor to sink and the mountains to rise. All of this would allow for the water to move away from the ark. So then, verse 4. Um, it says the ark rested on the mountains of Arat. This is an area in the Armenian highlands. Um, Armenia is a little a little country that's like the north of Iran, wet um, the east of Turkey, and it's actually got a very rich history with um Noah and the Ark. Now, it would be nice to be able to say, you know, we found the Ark. And but in reality, it was a wooden boat um uh exposed to sunlight and a year's worth of water. And and it would have been up on the top of, or at least in the highland areas, and it would have been sitting in wet dirt. Things tend to rot uh when they're sitting in wet dirt and they're exposed to sunlight. So even if Noah we could figure out where Noah's boat landed, uh Noah's Ark landed, there there's nothing left of it there. Like we're it's been 4,000 years. We're not finding this thing. However, multiple expeditions have gone out to try to locate this thing. Let's talk about Mount Ararat itself. So Mount Ararat itself is actually a volcano that last erupted in 1840. The the actual Mount Ararat is super, super high now. Um, it was not that high before, you know, as the volcanic activity has increased, the mountain has grown. So it would have been much lower. However, um, if this was a place that the arc had rested, it would have ex but a bit it would have been extremely treacherous and unstable. So when I say unstable, like imagine if you have ever seen the old Grinch Stoll Christmas movie, and he gets that sleigh full of toys up to the top of the mountain. Well, what happens to that sleigh? It's extremely unbalanced. So imagine putting an arc on the top of literally any mountain you've been on top of. And if is that thing going to sit um nice and flat to unload all everything that's on this thing and then not fall down after you? Probably not. So it's kind of it would it would be weird to think that the ark would have been at the highest peak of these highlands. It's probably gonna be on a lower level uh in one of these mountains. There's a couple of locations that have been um identified as possibilities. There's one that has um it's it's it's been given a lot of interest. Somebody flew over this area, I think it was in like 1912 or something, and they saw this depression in in the mountains that looked like a boat. And um, and so they sent some people in and they've looked at it. Well, that area that that the topography of it looking like a boat is actually pretty common in the Armenian highlands. And so, um, well, yeah, that could be a possibility that there was a boat, you know, there at one point in time. Um it's it's maybe not there. Maybe not. It may be just something that happens. Um, the the ways the the ground looks in that area and the ground movements, um, it seems to make these like boat-shaped structures a lot. There is another mountain, it's called Mount Kuti or Mount Judy, and this is actually the peak that's associated with Noah's Ark from the Islamic tradition in the Quran. So the story in the Quran uh actually most of the Quran follows uh biblical scripture pretty closely, right up until we get to Abraham, and that's because um Islamic tradition shared the history with Hebrews before Abraham. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, and Ishmael is the father of the Islamic nation. And so their Quran actually has a story um about Noah and the Ark, and it celebrates Mount Kudi as the location of the resting place for the Ark. Um, it has olive groves there that would have been um similar to what the dove would have found going out from the Ark. There's nothing like this present uh near Mount Ararat itself. So this is a much more hospitable place. Um it would have been a lower area, but still in the highlands, so the water would have receded from it well. And there's also a town, an ancient town or uh ruins of an ancient town that's been um at the base of this mountain, and it's called Shernat or Shurn Shahiri Noah, and this is just means the town of Noah. So there's that. Also, um, Christians and uh Muslims and Jews have climbed this mountain and celebrated um on the mountain. There's also like an altar that's there, but I think that's been rebuilt over time. So, whatever. This mountain is the mountain that the Islamic people have chosen as the area that um the ark rested. Now, Mount Jud Kudi is also known as Mount Cardu or Nippur or Carducian, and we do have ancient Babylonian historians. Um, Barassas is one of them. He identified Cardu as the Ark's resting place. So this is the same mountain, it's just a different name. And the Assyrians actually record the Ark as resting at Mount Nippur. Again, this is the same mountain, just different names. And amulets were actually made from the wood at Mount Nepore, stating it was from the Ark, and they were used to bring rain. So um, then again, if you know, ancient peoples obviously were very familiar where the Ark was going to what would have landed. And if they were, you know, to pulling away pieces of the Ark as amulets, the Ark definitely is not going to be found now because it would have run out long before uh we were able to find it. So there's some interesting thoughts, you know. It seems like it would be really great if we could find Noah's Ark that would answer all of these uh questions about whether the flood was real or not, but as with most of the data that we found that is very convincing, people explain it away. And so it's it's not a matter of evidence, it is a matter of faith. So verses um five through six, it says, the waters continue to recede and the mountains were now visible. So I want to actually bring our attention now to think about the perspective of Noah and and his because it doesn't talk about God interacting too much with him right now. It just talks about him keeping his promise and bringing the water away. But after a year of floating, the Ark, remember the Ark does not have a rudder, it doesn't have a helm. It's literally a flotation device. The Ark was at the mercy of wherever it landed. It could have, it could have found itself in the middle of a huge ocean, because there was definitely a huge ocean, and not able to land at all. And and you know, we we we have people that get stranded in the ocean and they cannot get to land and and they end up dying there. And this could have happened. We also could have the ark could have been in a very low-lying area, and so he could have been able to see land all around him and had no way of getting to the land. And so God prestige, you know, he kind of like strategically placed the ark where it would be, not only um in an area that they could get off of um the ark in a safe way, and it was a stable resting place, but also Noah had no frame of reference of where he was. Nothing would have looked the same when he disembarked from this ark. The the mountains would have been different, the oceans were different, the lakes were different, there was probably very little vegetation. If anything, it was all scrub brush that had just begun growing because the ark, the flood literally devastated everything. Everything is now different. He has no way of knowing which direction is north, which direction is south. He has no way of knowing uh where he is and what food would be available to him. Like I it's mind-boggling to think about the like just utter desperation that that Noah would have had and utter dependence Noah would have had on um God during this time. Because like we just we we talk about going into the wilderness and we talk about why we talk about doing adventures and we talk about going into the unknown, but really there's nothing that we can't look up on the internet or read a book about or look at a map or ask about. Noah had none of this. He had none of this. He had no way of knowing what even was going to come in the weeks ahead. He had no way of knowing, it was obviously much cooler than it had been before. He probably would have felt that coming off of the ark, and so uh, you know, maybe he wondered what winter was gonna be like. It's just incredible to me that he had literally a like starting from ground zero, there was there was nothing. I don't know if he knew how he was going to eat and survive. And again, they're still eating plants, and so like he's gotta have enough plants to eat. Also, all the animals had to have something to eat, and so you know, they're probably hunkering down around looking for things to eat. Um, sure, the dove comes back with an olive branch, but it's probably not, you know, a huge tree. And so it's really interesting. If you look at a map of Pangaea and its orientation on the globe, and I I'm gonna link one for you in the show notes because it this really got me thinking, and I've never thought about this at all in this depth before until um creating for this podcast. And and God's really starting to like, I don't know, give me an idea, uh, just even just a little bit of a a hint of an idea of what what that must have been like and what his dependence must have been like, but how divinely God protected and took care of Noah, even when Noah had no idea that God was doing it. Um, we know that there was interactions between God and Noah, uh even after the flood, um, but it doesn't, you know, directly say in the scripture God told Noah to farm this particular crop. God told Noah uh that this tree wasn't going to hurt him, God told Noah um that the winter wasn't gonna be too long. Like it doesn't say any of that. And so Noah had a lot of things that that he didn't didn't have you know the full idea about, and he just had to trust. And and um, but when you look at a map of Pangaea or what we believe Pangaea looked like, and based on the the ice cores and the jungle and all that stuff, when you look at it, the place the the highlands of Armenia are located relatively close to an ocean coast, a large ocean coast. It's on the east side of Pangaea. Um, it's almost in the direct center of the earth, so like right at the equator. And then there's a freshwater lake that's right near it. So fresh water would have been highly necessary. You know, salt water is present, although because of the flood, most of the water is probably fresh at this point now. Once the rivers start flowing and moving, they're gonna pick up some salt and they're going to start dumping salinity into the ocean. But it probably wasn't crazy salty. There would have been fish because fish would have been the only things that would have possibly survived this this flood. And then, you know, he puts them in a place where knowing what coming cold snaps there were gonna be in these ice ages that were going to take place, God locates the Ark in a place that is going to be the warmest. Um, it's gonna be the most able for growing crops, it's going to be the best situation that possibly could be for Noah and his family to survive and what he carried through this flood to be to be to survive. And I just, you know, the location at the ark was quite relatively quiet and sheltered with all of this other tectonic activity going on. Like even the area that that you look at, um, it doesn't have major fault lines around it. Um it's it's actually pretty much intact from where it was at this time. Um, you know, i i it Europe does seem to come down and um clock, you know, eventually uh arrive into the side of this, but that would have been, you know, hundreds of years down the road. Um, but it's not, you know, near any major splitting of the continents. This area, this Middle East area, um, would it would have not have been the Middle East, it actually would have been the Far East during Pangaea, but it actually stays pretty much in contact. And it's just interesting when you look at the map of what we think Pangaea looked like and where all the continents were, that God picked the exact location that would be the best location for the civilization of humankind to start from. And it just is uh Noah, all Noah was had to do was be obey God, and God just prom kept his promise to him, and he he he took care of him, he protected him even after the flood was over. So if there are things in your life that you have no idea what God is doing, you don't even know if God can see you, um, the answer is yes, he can see you, and you have no idea what God is doing because we can't see the end, but don't fear because God does have you um in his hand, and he is taking care of things that you won't even know. You might never know, but you might not know for days or weeks or years down the road. And look back and think about those times that he has protected you, that he has come through, um, and he really never left you, and just develop a grateful heart for that and and use that for future difficult periods of waiting in that you will experience because as we grow and as we age, we always life is full of um pain. This life on earth is full of stuff that we have to grow through and go through, and um, and God God has got us through all of it. I hope today's show has enriched your walk with God. I know I'm always amazed at all of the new and interesting things that I find every time I open the Bible. Until next time, grow deep in God's word as you follow the light.