If you’ve ever attended Sunday School you may be familiar with the story of Noah. It’s one of the classic children’s Bible stories. There was even a Noah’s Ark movie recently made – I didn’t watch it, so I don’t know if it’s good or even Biblically accurate.
If you’re not familiar with Noah, his story starts many generations after Adam and Eve got kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Earth’s population has grown significantly but unfortunately, the good that God saw during creation isn’t there anymore. All He sees when He looks at the world He created is wickedness and evil (Gen 6:5). A far cry from the paradise He created. But it’s not entirely hopeless.
Although Noah was enveloped by corruption and violence he didn’t cave into the pressure. He lived a blameless life (Gen 6:9), out of all the people in the world he was the only. That’s a shocking statistic but it shows living a righteous life is doable. Societal or cultural norms don’t need to dictate how we live. Noah swam against the current and chose what was right over what was the norm. Genesis 6:9 says he ‘walked in close fellowship with God.’ On a side note, interestingly it’s also how his great-grandfather Enoch lived. Enoch walked in such close fellowship with God that one day God just took him (Gen 5:21-24). Generations later his great-grandson would be the only one who found favor with God (Gen 6:8). Just one of those coincidences I find fascinating.
Back to Noah, God tells him to build an ark. Have you ever had God tell you something so fantastical that you wonder how it’s going to happen because it seems improbable from where you’re sitting?
God told Noah to build something he had never seen before. How crazy is that! Noah was building on blind faith. Every piece of wood he installed, every detail he followed was an act of faith. No one had ever built an ark of this magnitude. Noah had no idea what he was doing but God knew. God knew exactly how big it needed to be to house not only Noah and his family but all the animals and the food. He knew what type of wood it needed to be made of and how to make it weather-tight to survive the deluge. Noah wouldn’t have known.
Be encouraged, if God has given you a dream. You don’t need to make it happen or figure out how it’s going to happen. All you need to do is to be faithful. He’ll take care of the details.