For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water.
Genesis 7:17-18
If you can see it, it’s so clear.
Forty days is a period of testing.
The flood is a refining force.
The Ark is covered in pitch, which is the same word as atonement.
In our lives, there is a period of testing. This testing refines us. It grows us and raises us above the earth and the waters that would swallow us.
But we are preserved in the ark. In atonement. Held by the very hand of God through it.