• Read Genesis 6

MORNING— Finding Favor

• Focal Passage: Genesis 6:8

“But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”

Genesis 6 opens with a sobering description of the human heart—violence filling the earth, corruption spreading unchecked, and thoughts bent continually toward evil. In the middle of that darkness, one quiet sentence stands out like a shaft of light: “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.”

Noah was not perfect, but he was faithful. While the world around him drifted further from God, Noah chose to walk with Him. Favor did not mean Noah was spared from difficulty. It meant he was known by God, seen by God, and guided by God in a generation that had forgotten Him.

This verse reminds us that faithfulness often looks ordinary before it looks heroic. Long before Noah built an ark, he lived a life oriented toward God. In a culture bent on compromise, Noah’s quiet obedience set him apart.

God still sees those who walk with Him—especially when that walk feels lonely.

• Reflection:  What does it look like for you to walk faithfully with God in the midst of a culture that often pulls you in a different direction?

---

EVENING— What is Gopher Wood?

• Focal Passage: Genesis 6:13-14, 18

🌳Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch.”

One of the most intriguing details in Noah’s story is also one of the least explained. God tells Noah to build the ark from gopher wood—a word that appears nowhere else in Scripture. We don’t know exactly what kind of tree it was. Scholars have suggested cedar, cypress, or juniper, but the Bible never says. And perhaps that is the point.

God did not ask Noah to understand the wood. He asked him to obey.

Noah did not design the ark. He did not choose the materials. He simply followed the instructions God gave. The ark was not a human survival strategy; it was a divinely designed refuge. Whatever gopher wood was, it had to endure judgment—months of immersion, violent waters, crushing pressure. The ark was not built to be admired, but to hold fast.

Genesis also emphasizes that the ark was covered inside and out with pitch. The Hebrew word used here is closely related to the word for atonement—a covering. The waters of judgment fell, but they could not penetrate what God had sealed. Salvation did not come by avoiding judgment, but by being protected through it.

The pattern is unmistakable. Just as the ark was God’s chosen means of rescue, so Christ is God’s appointed Savior. The power was never in the wood itself—but in the God who provided the way.

God left gopher wood unidentified so we would not miss the greater truth:
We are saved not by understanding everything, but by trusting what God has provided.

• Reflection: Where is God calling you to trust His provision, even when you don’t fully understand His design?

• Closing Prayer: Father, help me obey You even when answers are incomplete. Teach me to trust Your wisdom more than my understanding. Thank You for providing a refuge through judgment and salvation through Christ. Tonight, I rest in what You have already prepared. Amen.