Get busy building your ark!
/*Disclaimer- I am not an educated theologian by any stretch of the imagination. I’m just a regular girl that reads her bible and sometimes notices weird things. With that being said…Pastors, feel free to use this, but I’m expecting a shout-out from the pulpit. ;)
A few years ago, I was in the midst of a season of waiting. I hadn't been in a relationship in several years, and I felt God was really preparing me for my future husband. Even though I was trying my best to trust God’s timing, I’ll be honest…I WAS TERRRIBLE AT WAITING! I swear, for a while I think I had blocked every happy person on Facebook and I really did a lot of wrestling with jealousy and feelings of inadequacy because I was still single. There were lots of tears, meltdowns, ice cream, whining to my momma and maybe even some yelling at my bedroom ceiling, asking God if he had forgotten about me. It wasn't my finest "phase”
Having grown up as a good southern Baptist, I had read about Noah and his big boat all my life. I’ve sang the songs, I’ve heard all about the rainbow, in 2nd grade I even went as one of a pair of rabbits to my Christian schools “Harvest Celebration” (You had to dress up as a bible character…did I mention we were VERY southern Baptist?!") Not long after the movie Noah came out, I got curious and one evening as I was sitting on the back deck of my little single-gal condo, reading my bible, when I flipped over to Genesis to do some research and see what creative liberties Hollywood had taken in the movie that weren’t in the bible. This was the first time in years that I had actually read that story in it’s entirety, from Genesis 6 (when I learned that giants were real and the world started to get bad) to Genesis 9 (before I lost interest and got distracted because of all the names I can’t read).
I’m just reading along and I find myself thinking a few different things…
1) Noah must have seemed SUUUUUPER NUTSO. Especially because some people suspect it had never even rained before the great flood.
2)Why don't we have gopherwood anymore? I bet it would make some sturdy dining tables.
3) I love my family, but a cruise with just them and a bunch of wild animals sounds downright terrible.
4) Noah must have been majorly stressin’ about collecting up all them animals. Some of every kind? Even birds? Sounds like a lot of work…especially if you don't know any giants that would be willing to help you.
Thankfully I got more hung up on the collecting animals thought than any of the others. I started to look more specifically at what God had told Noah.
I always thought that it was a pair of each animal, but in Genesis 7:3, God tells Noah that is only for the animals that are unclean. For the clean animals, he was told to bring SEVEN PAIRS! As if rounding up two Gazelle wasn't going to be hard enough…HE HAD TO WRANGLE UP FOURTEEN!! Just forget it.
Then it struck me. The bible left out the part about Noah wringing his hands and calling his momma (which is precisely what I would have done). I think that was on purpose. Because I don't think it happened. You know why? Because he had other things to do. He had a boat to build. He had food to gather. He had gopherwood to find. He couldn't waste his time worrying about something that God had already promised him would happen!
Then it hit me. I was convicted. I saw my life and faith in comparison to Noah’s. In that moment, I realized I was focusing all my energy on my worry about if a husband and babies would happen for me and I wasn't “building my ark” so I would be ready when the time came. I was stressed over a promise that God had made to me when he put those desires in my heart many years before. I wasn't trusting that he was going to make good on his word, and I had tricked myself into thinking that my anxiety and frustration would somehow help the situation. Meanwhile, I was overlooking the extremely blessed life I had already been given!
I won’t pretend that I didn't have more days of worry and doubt after God revealed this to me, because I did. I am only human, after all. But I will say, when I thought about the scene in the Noah movie where all the animals start showing up to the ark…it always quickly reminded me that we serve an AWESOME God that is capable of so much! Why wouldn't he be able to make my dreams come true? It’s nothing for him!
So if you’re waiting for your husband, or you are struggling to have a child, or your wondering why your career seems stagnant... I urge you to try to shift from a place of worry to a place of thanksgiving and “ark building”.
It’s difficult, but sometimes a change of focus will renew your strength!