Faith & Obedience

Obedience and Patience 

In studying this week, I was thinking about Noah and his commitment to obedience patience, and trust in the Lord’s timing.

His ministry of preaching and building the arc as commanded began at least 100 years before the flood came.

When the arc was finished, he was commanded to enter the arc with his family and was sealed up inside... a full 7 days before any rain started to fall. A full week of sitting in the stuffy, sealed up arc with all those animals... just waiting and wondering.

Can you imagine the obedience and faith of such a situation? How would our faith hold out? Would we begin to question or doubt whether we had actually received direction from the Lord, or if perhaps we had just imagined it all?

But the rains did come, and the flood did happen. How tragic if he would have lost faith on day 6 and just came out of the arc.

We might ask oursleves... how quick is my obedience? How sure is my faith and confidence? And when I act on promptings and nothing seems to happen, does my faith and patience begin to waiver and doubt? Will I give up when things aren't happening in the time or manner which I expected?

We have been commanded to prepare oursleves for the calamities of the Last days for generations. Have we done so?

And what if our preparations and our timelines don't match up with what God's reality is? If the waiting for deliverance takes longer than we thought, and the mocking of the world and the sneers and jeers from the great and spacious building grow louder and louder... Will we abandoned what we have built?

Or what if some of our family members fall away from the faith as did some of Noah's granddaughters before the flood came? Will we lose hope and trust in the Lord and His ability to save?

The heartache he must have felt knowing what so many would face including his own grandchildren. To hear the the cries of begging, pleading it rained and flooded and knowing you could not open the door. You could not let them in.

As I contemplate such things, I realize that obedience, faith, and patience are only proven to be true if they endure and are submissive to the Lord’s perfect timing, which doesn't always match our own.

Will we not only finish our personal arc, and enter in, but will we stay there securely, trusting in the Lord... even when the rains don't seem to be emminent or soon to fall?

Now does not seem like a good time in the history of the world to doubt, delay or debate our commitment to the Lord. We must enter in, and be securely sealed up... and willing to patiently wait for the Lord’s purposes to come to pass in their perfect way.