The Miracle of a Single Olive Leaf.

Like many of you, I am reading the book of Genesis. This little segment of a verse lodged in my mind. After the flood, the dove found an olive leaf.

One single leaf of an olive finds worth mentioning in scripture.

If the nature of the flood was as traumatic geologically as I perceive, one of the greatest miracles is that the dove found an olive leaf.

After so much upheaval, the breaking up of the fountains of the deep. The destruction of the ecosystem required no rain. The transformation of the earth’s crusts, when the water assuaged from off the earth. The mountains raised up, and the valleys sank down.

Much of the theories put out by science concerning layers representing the age of the earth ignore a lot of contradictory evidence.

On the top of every mountain chain, you will find fossils of marine life. How did the mountains, that were once underwater, end up above the water, high above the water.

The sheer weight of the water, sitting upon the surface of the earth, when the valleys sunk down deep and the mountains shot up high, that event may have been more catastrophic in scope than the water was.

After all this,

After the rain stopped, the Bible says that the water drained off the earth for 150 days.

The ark was landed, grounded on the top of Mount Ararat.

The Bible says Noah opened a window. He sent a raven and a dove.

The dove returned.

Seven days later, he sent the dove out again, and he returned with an olive leaf plucked off in its beak.

After all the devastation.

After all of the mind-blowing transformation,

There is still an olive tree. Planted. And the leaves have returned. And the dove finds that Olive tree plucks a leaf off and brings it back to Noah.

It might not seem like much to you,

But if you had been Noah,

Locked away in a floating storm Shelter, with all the farm animals for 364 days approximately.

A Year, like no other year.

Noah could say it was a bad year, except that He survived. Noah had the best year compared to everyone else.

He could testify, I am still safe and dry.

He could put his hand on those around him. We survived.

He had lost so much, and yet he saw in stunning clarity what he had left. All that was lost was under the flood of yesterday, however, all that was left, was above it all. Today. A ray of sunshine that would soon show the bent light of a kaleidoscope of colors. A visual display of the grace of God. The grace that found him, the grace that kept him. The grace that would be with him and us after every storm that followed.

So in the context of the rest of the world,

They had a testimony,

God kept us safe and dry.

I can see Noah walking down the stairs from the high window with the dove in one hand and the single olive leaf, shaking his head and with a smile on his face,

There is an Olive tree not far from where we are that survived.

When you have been through what he had been through, he saw the hope of a single olive leaf.

Celebrate the Little Things.

In Him, By Him, Through Him,

Scott Phillips