Tag Archives: ark

May 28, 2015 · 6:09 AM

Lessons From Noah

All of the raining and flooding here in Texas has made me revisit the story of Noah in Genesis 6-8. While I’ve read it as an adult and heard it multiple times as a kid in Sunday School, I had never gone through verse by verse, version by version to break it down to see what things stood out to me. What I’ve found is that I’m not ready to build an ark yet, but I am willing to do the things Noah did that helped him to find favor with God in a time that no one else did. Out of everyone on the planet, he and his family were saved because of how he lived.

Genesis 6:6 says that God regretted even making man and putting him in His creation. Verse 8 says that Noah found favor in God’s eyes though. He was willing to be the only person who did what was right. In a world where desecration, outrage, infringement, assault and lust for power were the norm, Noah found favor with God because he was not willing to give into the desires of the flesh. He knew how God had wanted us to live. He was willing to be the only person who did what was right even if no one else was. He was willing to stand alone in his faith.

Noah was able to stand alone in his faith, endure ridicule and honor God when others wouldn’t because He spent time with Him. Genesis 6:9 says, “Noah walked in habitual fellowship with God. (AMP)” The only way your faith can survive hard times or times when you are the only one who is serving God is through habitual fellowship with Him. Noah made time for God. He walked with God. He talked with God. He made Him a priority each and every day by setting aside time to spend with Him. The Bible says that because of that, Noah found favor in God’s eyes.

Because He had that favor, a God was willing to save Him. He was willing to trust him with a plan that would take years to fulfill. He gave him the blueprints to build the ark and set him free to do the work. I believe another reason God saved Noah was because he was obedient. The last verse in Genesis 6 says, “So Noah did everything exactly as God told him. (NLT)” He didn’t try to put his own spin on what God asked him to do. He didn’t try to find other ways to interpret what God could have meant. He simply obeyed and because he did, God saved he and his family.

In Matthew 24:37, Jesus said, “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (ESV)” There will come a time again when people will be living like the people of Noah’s generation. In that time, God will look around for faithful people. He will look for those who are willing to live for Him when no one else will. The ones He finds will be the ones who walk with Him habitually and obey everything He tells them. You and I are called to be that type of person, if you can’t walk with Him and obey Him now, how will you be able to when evil takes over the world? The time to walk with God us now.

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June 20, 2013 · 8:46 AM

The Blueprints of Faith

In our small group last night, we were reading from Genesis 6 where God gave Noah the blueprints for the ark. He told him it was to be 450 feet long, 45 feet high and 75 feet wide. He told him what kind of wood to use, how many levels to have, how to waterproof the wood, to build stalls and even told him why he was to do it and how it would happen. I got a little jealous of Noah as I read all of that because he got a blueprint of exactly what God wanted from him with each step.

I’d love for God to do that for me. Instead, I feel more like Abraham who God told, “Leave your native land and go to the land that I will show you.” There were no blueprints, no reasons or navigational directions. He was simply told to pack his stuff, leave his relatives and everything he’d known for a land that he would be shown without being given a reason. I don’t know if he felt the doubt, frustration and fear that I do from being in those shoes.

At first, I started to think that Abraham was the one who really acted in faith. After all, he didn’t get a step by step guide like Noah. The more I think about it, the more I see how much faith it took from Noah to accomplish his task even with a blueprint. When God shows you something you’ve never seen or heard of and asks you to do it, that requires a lot of faith. Even with a blueprint, you are venturing into the unknown, the uncomfortable. It requires faith to start building.

Another thing I see with Noah is the sheer enormity of the project God asked of him. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with how much God asks of us, but just like with Noah, it starts with one board and one nail. It took him a hundred years to complete what God asked of him. As our group leader pointed out last night, imagine Noah on year 33. After all those years, he was only a third of the way done. He’s worked night and day every day for over 39 years and only has a little of the project to show for it. Most of us would have quit. By faith, Noah got up the next day and kept following the blueprints.

Whether God has given you a set of blueprints or has asked you to follow Him with blind trust, it requires faith on your part. Faith to pick up that first board or faith to pack your bags and take that first step. Which of these two do you identify with? Has God asked for endurance from you to see His plan through in the face of ridicule and a seemingly lack of progress? Has He asked you to leave everything you’ve known to do something He’ll show you later? Either way, it requires faith and He has faith in you to accomplish it or He wouldn’t have asked you. Take courage and do something today that moves you in the direction of what He asked you to do.

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January 30, 2013 · 7:44 AM

Chopping Trees

I’m reading “Greater” by Steven Furtick right now. I’m only a few chapters in, but already I am being challenged. The premise of the book is to dream big, start small. I’ve had no problem dreaming. It’s the starting that is the problem. When you have a big dream, it’s natural to think you have to start big. In reality, you have to do the little things first.

Noah was called to build a big boat. His small start was chopping down the first tree. Think about that. He didn’t have a Home Depot to go to in order to buy the lumber he needed. He had to chop down trees, form them into lumber and then build the boat. That’s a lot of work. I think that my problem, as well as others, is that when God gives us a dream, we think He’s going to do everything and we forget we have to work towards that dream.

God plants the design and the desire in us, but we are the ones who have to walk by faith to make it happen. We have to chop down the trees and build what God has planted in us so that when the time comes for us to do what He called us to do, we’re ready. If Noah had waited until he saw a storm cloud to chop down the first tree, it would have been too late. The time to build an ark is while it’s sunny, not when the storm clouds are on the horizon.

It took Noah 120 years to build the ark. None of us have that kind of time, but it shows that just because God plants a dream in us, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen overnight. We may have to chop trees for a while. We may even cut down an entire forest before that dream becomes a reality. In that time of preparation is when our faith is tested. Thoughts like “Did I really hear from God” and “What if I do all of this and nothing comes from it” pop in our head to challenge us and cause doubt.

It’s in the chopping of trees that our faith grows. It’s believing God when we can’t see ourselves getting closer to the dream. Faith is knowing we heard from God and continuing to work towards that dream even though we can’t see how it will ever happen. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.”

If I could see the entire road and how it would happen, it wouldn’t be faith. Faith is about believing God when all I see are trees. It’s about putting it all out there and trusting God with everything. Others may laugh, ridicule or even stand in your way, but you have to keep building. You have to keep chopping. You have to keep trusting so that when the time comes for the fulfillment of your dream, you’re ready.

Noah could have dreamed about the ark for 120 years and then prayed for a miracle once the storm clouds started rolling in. Thank God he didn’t. He would have been in disobedience if he had only dreamed and never picked up an ax. Because he took small steps toward his dream, his family and the animals were saved. There’s no telling how many will be saved by your obedience. You’ll never know unless you start chopping.

What dream has God placed in you? What trees do you need to start chopping?

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