I have been studying the story of Noah recently and it has inspired me to evaluate my own walk of obedience before God. During this time in history, there were other people on the earth. Why did God choose Noah? The Bible said that Noah "found grace in the eyes of the Lord." (Gen. 6:8) Verse 9 tells us how he found God's grace, "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God."
According to this passage, Noah was it. He was pretty much the only person that God saw obedience in. Everyone else lived for themselves. People are the most complex beings on the earth because we have personalities. Even genetically-similar humans are diverse in their personality and processing of environmental stimuli. That is why it has always intrigued me that God chose Noah in this point of history. Is it possible that no other family within God's creation possessed the ability to obey save Noah's?
I believe the Bible and I believe that God chose Noah because he was singularly obedient in a world of conformity. God perceived within Noah the ability to process His revelation knowledge of an event that had never-before occurred in the history of time. There had never been any floods before now. I don't even think people really explored the water before now. It is theorized that water was a separate entity at this point in history and the concept of swimming was foreign to all peoples. Therefore, for Noah to perceive the gravity of this situation is phenomenal. For him to obey just because God asked him to shows the type of character he possessed.
Now, what about the length of time it took to build this thing? The Bible does not say exactly how long it took. However, we do know that when Noah is first mentioned in the Bible his age is 500 and when he entered the ark he is 600. So, at some point 100 years transpired. Does that mean that he was spending that entire time building the ark? This boat was taller than a 3-story building, 450 feet long (over 4 football fields), and 75 feet wide. Noah was using rudimentary tools and the Bible does not mention anyone other than his family who were involved in this endeavor. Beyond that, he had to cover the entire outside and inside with pitch (tarlike substance) to help promote buoyancy. Noah only had 3 sons, so at most the available adults for this project were 8. So, using a 10-hour workday theory, how long do you think he would need to accomplish it? Some speculate it took the whole 100 years, but I personally think that is too generous. I don't know, but I am more than sure it took over a year.
Would I be willing to work for God doing something that noone else in history had ever done for over a year? Would I be consistently obedient in the face of questioning and ridicule for over a year? Noah worked day after day after day with NO RAIN falling. He worked when the sky was blue and the storm clouds had yet to gather. The point remains that Noah was building his salvation. He was constructing the only vessel capable of weathering the future storms. I think that the Bible would have let us know if other people were doing this, too, and were not successful. I think it is safe to assume that Noah was the only person working day-in and day-out on a boat for the "future flood." Genesis 6:22 simply tells us, "Thus did Noah, according to all God had commanded him, so did he."
It was eventually time to get onto this massive boat.When the day arrived, Noah just did it. God makes it a point in the story of Abraham to point out how many times he questioned God's planning and timing and how many ways he pursued his own measures of making it come to pass. We don't see that in Noah, do we? We simply see someone who did "all God had commanded him." Even if I could obey for at least a whole calendar year with no signs of fulfillment on the horizon, could I truly do it without complaining or questioning? Could I get up every day when the sky is still gorgeous and the weather great and go out in the yard and work on my Ark without at some point looking at that thing and saying, "Am I sure He wanted me to do this?"
So, is the point of this story just that Noah was obedient? I don't think so. I truly believe the thrust of this story's poignancy is the fact that when the door was shut by God, what happened to the other people? Did they suddenly realize that this oddball may have known something? Did they suddenly understand that the sky was about to get very nasty? Did they bang on the doors and beg to be included? Were they like the animals in The Little Red Hen? Did they want to enjoy the fruits of the work without investing the work it took to get them? When the sky grew gray and the first raindrop fell, what do you think happened in those people's hearts? I truly believe that their entire life's choices were flashed before them and they each saw a moment of obedience that they pushed aside. I truly believe that every single person is born with the potential for greatness and the possibilities of doing all that God dreams for them. While I am a proponent of environmental staggering for people raised in evil, I also believe that no circumstance is beyond God's cleaning ability or the reach of His grace.
So, how do we take these insights and apply them to our lives? Well, a close friend of mine one commented to me, "The time to build the Ark is before the rains start." That's where we need to start. What Ark in our lives needs to be built? What act of obedience can we wholeheartedly invest today? What questioning and complaining can we refrain from so that our minds can stay open to the possibilities of the future? Can we start today, this moment, by opening our hearts to His voice and asking Him to show us what to build (or what to tear down) in our lives so that we will successfully survive the storms of the future? I want to like on the Ark and not in the Dark. Don't you?
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