Steering

Noah’s offering to God was his complete trust in Him. 

Noah's Ark (Ceren Bilgen)

When I was a very little girl, one of my aunts bought my sisters and I a book that was a Children’s Bible.  It was a very big book filled with simple stories from the Bible and simple illustrations.  I am sure that there are a thousand different versions of the same thing, but as a child I really enjoyed flicking through the pages and reading the stories contained within the pages.  The Old Testament stories were most interesting to me – Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rebekah and Rachel, Joseph and his jealous brothers and the coat at caused all the jealousy, David and Goliath, David and Bethsheba, Wise King Soloman, Lot’s wife, who turned into a pillar of salt, Moses…

But my favourite story of all time is the story of Noah.

I spent many hours reading and re-reading the story of the ark.  I imagined living on an ark with animals of very kind.  I imagined tigers as tame as house cats and birds that fluttered quietly and gently around the place.  I imagined horses and ponies and donkeys living side by side.  I imagined snakes slithering onto the ark without harming any other creature.  And I imagined the family of Noah – living together and tending the animals like a bunch of veterinarians in the family business.

Obviously, the story is not quite as simple as this.  When you look at the text in relation to this story in the Bible, there is a very detailed description of the Ark that Noah was to build – God was prescriptive here…

“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.  God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.  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 6:11-22).

Noah was told exactly how big to make the Ark.  It was flat at the bottom and a rectangular shape.  It was the length of a cricket ground and stood four stories high.  It had no sails or rudder or mast.  There was no way for Noah to steer the ark.  It was waterproof and built to float but it could not be steered.  Noah could not even shut the door himself – God shut it for him…

Noah took all of his entire family and got on a thing that he could not close or steer.  And he did it with complete trust in God.

Noah’s offering to God was his complete trust in Him.  And THAT is what I have come to realise from that story today…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.