“I will establish my covenant with you.” (Genesis 6:18)

Usually, when we tell children the story of Noah’s ark in Genesis 6-8 we share a sanitized version with them. Instead of focusing on the brutal violence contained in this story, we focus on the storybook picture of a tiny family on a beautiful boat filled with cuddly animals.

Part of the challenge is that we do not want to recognize our own desire for violence. All of us have wanted to wipe out those we think are corrupt and have violated the way world should be. We are just like the people who we think should be wiped out by a vengeful flood.

Even in the middle of this all too realistic reminder of human evil, it is helpful to see that violence is not the end of the story. Noah and his family are offered a covenant, an eternal reminder of God’s love and an everlasting promise that God will relent from the kind of violence we participate in every day.