As many of you know, I am a huge fan of movies. I have this sick ability to remember lines and scenes from movies vividly. I can relive and re-quote almost any movie after only seeing it once. As I read today's scripture I can only think about and see the interaction between Evan Baxter (Steve Carell) and God (Morgan Freeman) in the movie Evan Almighty. In this scene God meets Evan at the pile of wood that was just delivered and tells him that He wants Evan to build an ark. Evan puts up a witty defense and makes some excuses about why he cant make the ark and leaves. I wonder if this may have been how Noah felt when the real God came to him and told him to build the real ark.
In this particular section of Genesis we see a God who is just and loving, showing a desire to start over with a faithful man. God is not very happy with the current state of His creation. There was one man though, that God found favor. Noah builds the ark, loads it up with animals and his family. The Earth flooded for 150 days, killing everything that wasn't in the boat. At the end of the flood, the water resided and Noah, his family and all of there new pets left the boat to start a new life. Upon touching foot on dry ground, Noah offers up a sacrifice to God that was pleasing in His sight. God smelled the pleasing aroma and said:
"21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though[a] every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done."
What in the world does all of this mean...
As I pondered this section I'll I could see was a process. Step one: God chooses one of His followers to do something great for His Kingdom in a place where it needs it the most, Earth. Step two: The faithful man, or person, in this case Noah, after some thought excepts the task at hand and completes it faithfully without to many questions. Step three: God blesses the work of the faithful and the generations that will follow he or she because of there faithfulness. This seems pretty simple but is it really?
We have all been in situations where God has asked us to do something big and scary. Many of us fall into one of two categories. We are to numb to see that God is asking something of us or we are to scared to follow through because we are paralyzed by the unknown. Today and this year, let me challenge you to not be like Evan and more like Noah, faithfully listening to the Lord following through with what He has asked of us. Because God promised us he would never flood the Earth again, I doubt He will ask you to build an ark, but it could happen. I do know there is one thing that He has asked of all of us and that is to share the Gospel with the World. This can be a scary thing at times but the question is are you in or are you out?
It is time for us to realize that our God in Heaven is waiting for a few faithful men and women to boldly stand up and say "Lord here we are, send us." We all have the ability to flip this world upside down for the Kingdom by putting aside our fear as we accept the call God has given us to "Go and make disciples of all nations."
No comments:
Post a Comment