Genesis 6:9-17
Verse 9 This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.
What an honor to have God find favor in him but it came with responsibility. And what a responsibility it was! To understand just how big this must have seemed to Noah, we need to remember a few things. God had a watering system which made the soil moist from the ground not through rain as we are used to. To be asked to build something to be safe in a flood wouldn’t have made much sense to him.
As Noah was trying to wrap his head around what the Lord was telling him to do, he started hearing the dimensions of the boat he was to build. While we can picture the size of it in our heads when we think about it being the length of one and a half football fields and about the height of a four story building, when Noah heard those numbers he had to make sure there was a place to build something that big. Imagine him walking out those measurements and feeling the weight of the project in front of him.
God’s plan was going to stretch Noah and his faith. It wasn’t going to be easy to build this giant boat when he had never seen anything like it. But not knowing didn’t keep Noah from stepping out in faith and obeying what God was telling him to do. God had been specific about what kind of wood to use and Noah began collecting what he would need. So much wood was needed and the more he gathered the more he was probably harassed and made fun of by all the evil people surrounding him.
Not only was this a large space to have cleared out and prep to be built on, Noah was going to need make a way to build it up to the height God had told him. While builders today would use scaffolding which can be moved from place to place semi-easily, Noah didn’t have that convenience and would have had to figure out how to build up.
The thing we need to understand about what God was doing here is that it wasn’t just about removing the bad guys and saving the good guys. God is a bigger picture God and that means He was working out multiple things at the same time to bring Himself glory and for the betterment of His chosen people. God was growing Noah’s character, shaping him to be a father who would guide his family in the ways of the Lord instead of the evil ways they had been witnessing.
Making It Personal
What are some ways God has used a situation in your life to grow you spiritually? What is the biggest lesson you learned during that time? How have you been able to use that information to help others?
Making It Personal Kids
Have you ever gone through something that helped you learn a lesson? What lesson did you learn? Can you use that lesson to help others?
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for calling us out of our comfort zones. Help us learn the lessons You want us to learn so that we can make You known to the nations. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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