What's a Boat?

             So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.  So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.  I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”

Noah did everything just as God commanded him. (Genesis 6:13-22)

 

Isn’t this “just like God”? He shows up in someone’s life and commissions an ark with specific requirements into which that person is to collect two of every kind of everything along with food. Change the details, but what God calls us to do can feel like a combination of “mission impossible” and a “comedy of the absurd.” As far as Scripture has indicated, it hasn’t rained in 1556 years and wouldn’t rain for another century. The land is watered by mist. What’s rain? We tend to think of the people of that time as being primitive. What’s a boat? We also tend to think of animals the way we see animals today, but according to Genesis 9:2, animals weren’t afraid of Noah or his family - and possibly weren’t afraid of people in general.

The whole situation gets a huge, “Huh? You want me to what?”

God would later tell Moses to go to the pharaoh and insist that he “set my people free.” He’d tell Joshua to take his army against a walled city four days after circumcising that army. He’d tell Gideon to take on an army with 300 men. He’d take a shepherd boy up against a giant soldier. He’d send a reluctant prophet to “Sin City.” He’d ask His Son to give up His life to save us all.

Maybe you’re like me. God hasn’t asked me for things that are that big. Maybe He’s asking us to give up the selfish ambition to be like these men. Or maybe we aren’t ready, but they weren’t always ready, either. According to extra-biblical stories, the people mocked Noah and his family. He may have had to do this while holding down a day job. In the hundred years that it took to build the ark, life went on. So did death. He lost both his father (Lamech) and his grandfather (Methuselah.)

          Noah might have had smaller goals that might have repeated: get the wood, prepare the wood, frame the ark, get more wood, prepare more wood, build the decks (or maybe the hull but it seems as if it might have been easier to use the decks as scaffolding. That may just show how little I know about boat building.

          Are you working on any goals that seem a bit crazy? I am. I’m hm-hm-  years old and I’m trying to build a life that is whole, healthy, and new to me. I’m trying to build a garden that will go a long way toward feeding me, my dog, and other people. I need to find a job. I’m working on my fourth novel when the previous three haven’t paid for themselves. And while I’ve made some progress over the last three months, I’m not exactly setting any land-speed records for getting any of it done.

There are times when I – and I suspect we – want to say, “Hey God! What’s a boat?”  There are times when being told “You’re a fool!” gets a little old. Are they right? There are other times when that negativity is just the motivation we need. If “they” are critical, that might confirm it’s what God wants or make us get our backs up and work harder.

But we need to pay attention to something. The mission impossible and comedy of the absurd assignments we get are designed as means for God to bless us and others.