ie: Change, its peaks and its pitfalls
I have been over the story of Noah several times lately. To teach Sunday school, ladies’ Bible studies, personal devotions....and God showed me something that I had never seen before. It is the part about Noah planting a vineyard.
I kept thinking, WHY??. Why did Noah get himself into trouble like that?
If you remember the story in Genesis 6-9….Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD, ...for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation,..... Noah walked with God,….
God said unto Noah….Make thee an ark of gopher wood…..window, door, three stories, rooms for the animals, and God proceeds to give Noah very clear instructions on how he should do it, every detail, how long, how wide, how tall. Even what color to paint it. Pitch, remember, the color of pitch. (Now here I noticed that God didn’t give Mrs. Noah a say in what her new home was going to be like? Hmm, something else to think about.)
We know from all this that Noah was a great man in God’s eyes. Noah had no doubts as to what God wanted or how to go about it. A daunting task, clearly, but thinking from a man’s point of view, he had no identity crisis. He didn’t have to labor in prayer for years trying to figure out the answer to the big question, WHAT DOES GOD WANT ME TO DO?
So, this was his purpose, his reason for living. Noah had something tangible to do, he could work with his hands. And he was God’s messenger and God had given him a great visual to use when he preached. This was going to be easy. Everyone knew where Noah stood. They knew what he lived for. Life was easy peasy for Noah. Even his children were on board, (pun intended.)
So, the story continues and Noah sticks to the task. Hammering and nailing, pitching and preaching. Finally,the ark is finished and God says it is time and the animals start showing up, two by two and seven by seven. The hay and water and the fruit and the veggies are all packed away and God shuts them all into the ark.
What a relief and joy Noah must have felt. “ I did it, he may have said, “ I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” Well, okay someone else said that, but you get the picture. He was a happy camper, his job was done, now he could just sit back and wait and take care of his pets, zoo-style.
So, days go by and the rain keeps coming, and coming, and then one day…. it stops. They wait and they wait…and now finally, they can open the window. There is still only water as far as the eye can see but at least there is a bit of fresh air and sunshine. I bet everyone wanted to stand in that little space of air and light. Can’t you see them standing up on the elephants trying to get the best view?
Okay, now, for just a second, being a woman, can’t you hear Mrs Noah and her daughter’s in law jumping for joy? All those weeks, months really, without one open window!! Living with 4 men, no shower and animals, lots of animals. Even if the guys were diligent about their chores, and cleaned all the stalls every day, where did they put the used hay? It was still on the ark somewhere! Months of it!! Our family has had many pets over the years and I can tell you, animals do not make an appealing air freshener!
And let’s not forget about the birds. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them. According to Wikipedia, there are hundreds of species, multiply that times two, remember that gestation for most birds is only a few weeks,and they were in the ark for months! You do the math! Just think of the number of ducks and chickens alone! They had to give refuge to every species of birds, do you know how many birds that would be? Was there anywhere safe that a woman could walk? Did they make their own hats out of molted feathers to try and protect their heads?
I imagine that the clean water had to be rationed for drinking for the family and the animals, so did they even get to wash their hair? Ugh!!! And how many times did they get B-52 bombed on? Did they finally give up even trying to keep their hair clean? I shudder at the reality of living in that ark.
So the window opens and the ladies break out with the Hallelujah chorus. And the birds take off out the window, FLY they say, FLY!!! So they zoom out like the good B-52 bombers that they are, but eventually return and park on top of the ark, waiting for a tree, just one tree. ( I wonder if that first tree broke under the weight of every bird left on the planet trying to build their nest in it. )
But let’s get back to Noah, good, dutiful Noah. He takes care of the animals and his family, filled with satisfaction for a task well done. He knows God is pleased with him and then he is sending out a raven to scour the earth for dry land. Then a dove, and then another one. Ever the patient servant. We will just wait a little bit more, he says. And then, finally, with trumpets blowing,well, at least the elephants’ trumpets, they open the door and everyone runs off the ark. Mrs Noah is first in line and throws herself into the mud, kissing it, so grateful to be on solid ground, praising God that they survived.
And the air, oh the air, how clean and fresh and pure it is. She is giddy with joy.
So the family moves out of the ark, little by little. After all, where exactly were they going to live? How far did they have to walk to find enough material to build a home? This is where things start to get sticky. The trees have been under water for a year. Not good building material at this point.
“Ok, Noah,” says dear, sweet, Mrs Noah, “now what? Now where are we gonna live? What will we build our house out of? There is no dry wood. No hay to mix with mud for bricks because the animals have eaten it all. We could pile up some stones but how will they keep from falling down again? And we can’t stay up here on this mountain? We will freeze to death in the winter! And the food is just about gone.”
“ Animals you say? God says we can eat them now? You want me to eat an animal? The very same animals that we just lived with for nearly a year? The ones that were like family, the only friends we had left? Are you crazy? That’s barbaric!”
“What about my figure? Do you know how many calories there are in red meat? Do you know what that will do to my hips? I am 700 years old! I’ll have a heart attack and die in a month! All this rain and ark stuff and having to just walk away from everything we knew, …all of our friends, …well, the few I had left after your ark project!. And the screaming, do you remember the screaming, all our friends wishing they had listened to you? Dying, one by one? I hope someday I won’t hear those screams in my head anymore!”
“And now, what?You are telling me that we are going to eat animals, and you want to be a farmer? What happened to carpentry? It pays better! Can’t you just contract out some work? Oh, yeah, no one else lives here, well, the girls are all pregnant, and with all the puking I did on that ark, I probably am too. And at my age!! I tell you Noah, I don’t know what you got us into.”
So, Noah’s crisis begins. He really isn´t a farmer, he is a builder and a preacher. But who is there left to preach to? His family, sure, but what can he tell them that they don’t know first hand?
So, he plants a vineyard. Really, of all the crops he could have chosen for the new world , he starts with a vineyard?
He plugs along, trying to make some sense out of his new world, the babies begin to be born, the animals now take more work to care for them than before because he has to fight with them. They used to just come when he called but now they run in fear. He is always chasing that dumb cow! And the sheep, don’t even get him started on them! They never do what’s good for them. Always running in the opposite direction, eating the wrong plants, and the incessant baaing. What’s with that?
And so it goes, life is different now, no buddies to shoot the breeze with. No one to show off his grandchildren to. No one to brag about his crops to. The four houses are finally built. He just put a new addition on Shem’s place.
He has to do something to keep himself occupied. So, he plants the vineyard. Vineyards take more work than vegetables. It keeps him busy. They will have fresh juice in the fall. The ladies can dry the vine branches and make wreaths. They will like that, something to decorate their houses with. The vines give nice shade in the summer. The sun gets pretty hot up here, halfway to Ararat. Yes, a vineyard is a good idea.
Soon, harvest has come and there is too much juice to keep in storage. Well, maybe he can just make a few bottles of wine. . But he better try it first, It might take a few attempts before he gets it just right. Well, just a little more, it has been a long haul, you know. The ark, the animals, the rain, a new home,… no friends, …no siblings, no cousins,no neighbors, they are all gone. Never really had time to mourn them. Okay, just one more sip.
This is where Noah’s story ends. The last thing we know about him. He is drunk and naked. Once, he was a man who walked with God and was used mightily to get His message out. Yes, he is being fruitful and populating the earth again. He is still obedient to the task. But somehow he finds himself in crisis. A culture shock of sorts. His life is completely different. Even the landscape isn’t like home. Living on that mountain, looking far down and away at the sea. No city, no holidays, no noisy neighbors, no Starbucks, no Ipads.
And then it happens. His son’s sin. He saw what he shouldn’t see, did what he shouldn’t do. Because life had become smaller. And they were a bit lost, not knowing how to be alone with themselves. Not knowing how to face this new, empty world.
The highs were really high building that ark, seeing that first cloud, knowing they were right, that God hadn’t lied to them. That they really hadn’t wasted 100 years of their lives.
But the lows, they are lower than low. Because in the lows, he made some mistakes, he was caught off guard. He relaxed, too much, and forgot about the future, about his children. He forgot that they only had him as an example.
In the highs, our senses are on full alert. Our purpose, and the adrenalin that kicks in from it, keep us focused. We are goal-oriented, looking at the prize and at the finish line.
But in the lows, our faith begins to fail, our hearts deceive us, and we forget that God is still right there, next to us, watching and listening. Asking us if we love Him in the lows, or only in the highs, when we are out in front, receiving accolades and accomplishing our tasks for “His” sake.
Noah started out great, but didn’t finish well. So did King David. He chose to rest instead of staying in the battle, and then he met Bathsheba.
As Christians, we need to stay alert. On the good days and the bad days. Change can be good, life is full of changes. But, let’s be careful that we don’t change even when our world changes. Little decisions can bring about disastrous results.
God told Noah, Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. Be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
Read that last chapter of Noah’s life. He still had a job to do, it just wasn’t as glamorous and public as the one with the ark. . God’s instructions were simple. He didn’t give Noah all the details like in the days of building the ark. He didn’t spell out every step of rebuilding a normal life. I wonder why? Maybe because He believed that Noah already knew what was right and what was wrong. And if he would just keep walking with Him and listening to Him, God would show him the way, one day at a time. Just like He does for us.
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