Imagine, if you will, that it has never rained. The Earth waters itself, so there is no need for water to fall from the sky. You wouldn’t know what rain was. It would be a foreign concept to you because you had never experienced it.
For Noah and the people who lived on the Earth at that time, this was their reality. They had never seen a drop of rain.
The people were very wicked. God was so sorry that He had ever made them that He said, “I will wipe out these people I have created...” (Genesis 6:13). God only found one man who pleased Him: Noah.
God instructed him, “I am going to send a flood on the earth to destroy every living being. Everything on the earth will die, but I will make a covenant with you. Go into the boat with your wife, your sons and their wives. Take into the boat with you a male and a female of every kind of animal and of every kind of bird, in order to keep them alive” (Genesis 6:17-20 TEV). He specified how Noah should build the ark–what type of wood, how many levels, what to cover it with.
Remember now, Noah had never seen rain. He didn’t even know what a flood was, yet Genesis 6:22 (TEV) concludes, “Noah did everything that God commanded.”
How many of us would do that? How many of us would do everything that God commanded when we had no concept of what God was talking about? Not many.
Most of us question God. We are suspicious of God’s intent. We are afraid that God doesn’t have our best interests at heart. We are also afraid that we might not like whatever God tells us to do.
Noah trusted that God would never steer him wrong, that God had only the best in mind for him and his family.
God is our Father. He loves us, and He wants the best for us.
“For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome” (Jeremiah 29:11 AMP).
His plans for us are for our welfare and peace and not for evil, to give us hope.
However, it is how God directs us, the places and things that He allows us to go through, that often irritate us. We don’t understand why God is making us do things that seem to have no purpose and don’t appear to fit into the big picture.
In the end, though, when we see the people who God’s helped through our obedience, when we see how all the pieces fit together, we marvel at how God orchestrated everything to bless His people.
That’s what happened to Noah. He didn’t understand what God had in mind, but he obeyed. And through his obedience, his family was saved.
So the next time God tells you to do something you think is strange or off-the-wall, do it. Then watch God orchestrate a blessing through your obedience.
