I feel like Noah. The one with the ark.
When I think about that forever old story, what amazes me the most is not that God saved one guy in the entire world and all the rest were destroyed in a massive flood. It is not that by a complete miracle two of every animal on the entire planet found their way to the same random boat. The MOST amazing part to me is that it had never rained before. Seriously, water falling out of the clouds was as strange an idea to them as me telling you that tomorrow it’s going to pour goats. Bizarre… Noah believed God, believed an incredibly unbelievable thing, and we call this amazing faith. In retrospect, sometimes I like to think that we would have all been co-cheerleaders for Noah. We believe that if this happened now – if Noah told us that through much prayer he believed that God had told him to build a boat and put thousands of animals on it, we would say, “Go for it, Capt’n! What faith!”
The truth is, many times our advice to the current “Noah” is that you should wait until your life fits this project in better. Usually we tell Noah that he is being naive. Sometime we tell him to to go ahead with that idea, but there’s not a chance in hell we’d be building a boat in our backyard and wait fo rain or goats or whatever….
My question is why does it seem like Christians feel the need to warn other Christians of the risks and possible consequences involved in a prayerful leap of faith?
How come if the calling seems dangerous or unusual or risky our first response is to assess future possible damages?
I believe leaps of faith usually don’t offer 20/20 foresight. I also believe that if it was easy and there was no risk during which you must trust in Him, then it wouldn’t be a leap of faith.
If you are reading this, wondering if this might be aimed at you, please know it is not. It seems this happens often, and I find myself offering doubts more than encouragement all the time – which is the why behind this post.
I hope to remember to always encourage great faith in others – and ask for their protection in my prayers.
2 Comments
April 1, 2007 at 8:48 pm
I was at Tutu and Papa’s last night (Saturday 3/31) eating supper, and I was showing her how to create ‘favorites’ on her computer. I was putting your blog on her favorites list, and she said “I love her blog. The way she writes just tickles me to death!”
April 4, 2008 at 6:42 am
[...] experience at the airport Jump to Comments I once wrote a blog about feeling a little bit like noah when God told him to build an ark to prepare for the flood. Everybody thought he was a lunatic, [...]