Doing Great Things For God, Part II

This is a continuation from "Doing great things for God, part 1."

Last time we saw how Noah lived differently than the culture where he and his family resided and that brought him into favor with God. It also made him available for what God was planning, the destruction of the world by a flood.

“Build a large boat from cypress wood and waterproof it with tar, inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls throughout its interior. Make the boat 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. Leave an 18-inch opening around the boat. Put a door on the side, and build three decks inside the boat- lower, middle and upper.”   Genesis 6:14-16

This was the entire blue print and plan that Noah had available.  And, to give some perspective to the size of the ark or boat, it would not fit down on the playing surface of any baseball park and most of the football fields in America. It is as wide as our auditorium at Lakewood church and is twice as high. The length of the keel or the main beam of the boat would be 70 feet taller than the current tallest redwood in California.

It would seem that God gave Noah and his family an impossible task. They had to build a boat in order to save themselves from something that no one had ever seen before, rain, collect the animals and the food needed for the time on the ark. This was a huge undertaking for eight people, or was it? Would God had asked Noah and family to do something without giving them the tools and knowledge to so? How would Noah have made a keel for the boat if there was not a single tree long enough? We do not have knowledge of the world before the flood. Maybe there were bigger trees back then. Or, maybe they used “scarf” joints to join several beams to make a long enough keel. Amazing things happen when one is willing to be led by God.

That is the lesson for us. Do we trust that God will lead and supply or do we fall back on what is convenient or available at the moment? Do we trust in what is seen or unseen? Do we lean and depend on our own understanding or do we defy culture and therefore make ourselves available to God? Noah appears to be a humble grape grower or farmer. When we look at Noah or any of the others mentioned in Hebrews 11, we see men and women of means, education and status whom God called and equipped for the task. For many of those people the task was of short duration or a one-time event. Most of our lives between birth and death are lived while doing the mundane things of life, working, shopping, cleaning toilets, etc. How we go about performing the mundane for God will tell him if he can give us greater things to do. How faithful are we in the little things of life?

Life is spent “as we go”. Let’s go with God

-by Gary Tucker