Hurricane Katrina cleanup workers in New Orleans might envision conditions after a worldwide flood. If the waters had covered the highest mountains, the mere fact that it had stopped raining wouldn’t mean it was safe to leave the ark. So Noah used birds as “scouts” to determine what was happening on the earth. Eventually, “the earth was dry.” That would have meant all the bad was gone—but nothing had yet taken its place. Now what?

• Eventually, nearly all of us face a “blank slate” situation—a new school, a neighborhood or town where we don’t know anyone, maybe a new diagnosis that drastically changes our way of life. In what ways have you learned to “scout out” the land when you face an empty, unknown situation? In this archetypal story, God didn’t say, “Relax, Noah—I’ll tell you when the land is dry.” Was Noah “on his own,” or did he just need to live out an active role under God’s leadership?
• Jesus told a story that pointed to the danger of merely getting rid of bad things, without putting anything in their place. In Luke 11:23-26, he pictured an exorcised “unclean spirit” saying, “I’ll go back to the house I left.” He found the house cleaned up, empty and decorated, and moved back in, bringing seven other worse spirits with him. Have you ever experienced the power of putting a positive good in place of something hurtful, rather than just focusing on the negative habit or action?