Last week we spent some time standing at a bit of a distance, peering over the railing of reality into the shadows as boundaries were crossed and authority was corrupted. Today we zoom in. Today, things get personal as God begins His redemptive plan. This next phase of the story shows something many never slow down long enough to notice: God isn't indifferent to evil.

Genesis 6:5 is the saddest and bleakest state of the union addresses ever. For some reason we fancy our problem to merely be that we mess up occasionally, but that's not the issue in this passage. Evil has soaked into our thought patterns, desires, imaginations, and culture. "Every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time." God didn't simply describe behavior ... He made a diagnosis of the heart.

Then came two words that arrest even the most casual observer: regret and grief.

He isn't some detached "force" watching the world burn from a safe distance. He's the Creator, the Father watching the family He formed implode on itself in violent destruction. He feels every ounce of the fracture. So much so He regretted making us; He was deeply grieved. An emotion we don't often give Him credit for having; an emotion we've somehow grown to think is a faithless sinful thing to experience as we cover our sadness someone asks us "How are you doing?" with hollow retorts like "Better than I deserve" when the truth is our insides have been dead for a while.

But He felt it. Every little bit of it. That doesn't mean He is weak, surprised, or overwhelmed. It means He's relational. Again, we see that sin isn't merely lawbreaking, it is relational devastation .. and it wounds what God loves, which, in turn, wounds Him.

Then, all of a sudden, in the dark night of the soul, a blinding ray of hope shines like a blinding ray of sunlight and we get to powerful words: "But Noah ..."

Yes, God takes corruption seriously. Yes, judgment is real. But so is mercy ... and it is the light we see shining in the dark. In a world bent on self-destruction, God's favor rests on one man. Not because Noah is or was the hero of this story, but because God is still committed to His story of redemption. Favor isn't something we earn, it is something we are given.

Seeing God grieve signals something important about reality: our choices matter. Our lives matter. Our faithfulness matters. Not because we are holding the world together with them, but because it shows God is still at work in the world. Even when it is collapsing around us.

Given the current headlines here in early 2026, this reflection may be a softball, but pause and give it some deeper thought. As the parent of a murdered son and a medically disabled and fragile daughter, I admit I've sometimes felt God was indifferent and absent. But my faith instructs and leads me on a different path. 

Where have you been tempted to believe God is numb to what is happening in your life or in the world? What changes in you when you remember that God grieves evil because He loves what is good?

Father, I know in my head you are not distant or cold, but near and loving. I'm glad you know and feel what is broken in the world and in me. Help my heart to know what my mind affirms, make it tender where yours is tender. Keep me faithful when the world, and sometimes the church, normalize sin, hate, and bitterness. Keep me steady, keep me true. Amen.