Genesis 6:5-8 tell us;
“God saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil-evil, evil, evil from morning to night. God was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart. God said, “I’ll get rid of my ruined creation, make a clean sweep: people, animals, snakes and bugs, birds-the works. I’m sorry I made them.”
But Noah was different. God liked what he saw in Noah.”
Let’s set the stage for this. The human race was growing, and spreading across the earth. But, along with their numerical increase, there was a parallel increase of sin as well. All of their hearts were fully saturated and consumed by evil thoughts.
Darkness shot up like a spike in the stock market, and God was deeply affected by it. He was troubled, and He was grieved. He was in so much anguish that it moved Him to regret that He had ever made us to begin with!
So, He decided to wipe the human race from the face of the earth, and give it all a fresh start. And Noah would be the one to lead that new movement, since he had found favor in the eyes of God.
It’s shocking for me to see how strongly God was emotionally impacted by the presence of sin in the lives of His people. Earlier in Genesis 1:31, it says that; “God saw all that He had made, and IT WAS VERY GOOD.” Yet just a couple chapters later, He was experiencing a ton of regret over His ‘very good’ creation, and decided to shut it all down – all because it had become so twisted by sin.
I believe the most difficult times we struggle with our on-going sin, is when we become desensitized to it. We’ll shed no tears over our violations, and feel no brokenness over our offenses. It’s such a scary season to find ourselves in, as it only leads us along to a deeper condition of numbness.
But – it’s a season we don’t ever have to be in again.
What we need is fresh insight into the broken heart of God that results from our breakdowns. Let’s not be fooled. God isn’t so busy hanging some stars somewhere that He’s disconnected from the daily struggles of our lives. He wants us to win the battle, and overcome the darkness that’s working overtime to trip us up and knock us down.
And when we don’t – He feels it.
NO ONE likes breaking the heart of someone they truly love. If anything, we strive to PROTECT those hearts from being broken. So we should do everything we possibly can to protect ourselves from breaking the heart which matters most – the heart of God.
