Noah and The Weight of Surviving

So, I’m pondering….

In the story of Noah, we see a man who listened to a voice. That voice told him “Hey buddy, this is God…. I’m gonna need you to build a ridiculously massive boat in your semi-arid neighborhood (avg. 10" rain/year and high temps of 110) because I’m going to flood the ENTIRE EARTH and wipe out anyone who doesn’t heed your warnings and get on that boat with you.”

It's been easy to see the story as one where I should put myself in the place of Noah, the freak. The weirdo who is speaking of a coming doom in the most impossible fashion… ludicrous for any who hear him to attach any rational understanding to- beyond blind faith…. The weirdo who, if they listen to him, will help them get on the boat where they will be saved from the annihilation that is coming…

I thought that’s all the story had for me, right?

Ok, God. Noah had the courage to speak your truth and get laughed at. He was right in the end and everyone else found that out when it was too late… too bad for them.

But lately….

I’m watching the posts of all the people who are getting sick and all the people who are dying from known contraindications involved in the “flood” that many of us were recently warning about, myself included. I actually uttered the words “get on the boat” at one point in my videos pleading with people- It’s time to get self-sufficient and step away from the false gods that are promising you false salvation.

God promised us that if we choose other gods he will abandon us to them… he will allow us to suffer the consequences of depending on and worshiping those gods….

So as I sit here thinking about all the death and suffering I’m seeing around me, I’m looking at the Noah story and seeing another, perhaps more powerful, message….

How do you think Noah felt as he pulled in the gangplank and the earth began to shake? Do you think he stood on the upper decks and laughed at the folks who were cruel to him and were now perishing? Do you think he watched with satisfaction as the members of his family and groups of his friends who couldn’t believe what he said were swallowed by the waters?

Or do you think he had to find another gear of endurance in suffering? Do you think he had to find a way to grieve in the space of letting go of the control over the choices of others? How would it feel to know that every other living thing on the land but you and the animals below deck are gone?

Because watching the consequences of choices you warned against is hard... it is a crucible that will hone the metal of which we are made... I think this part of the Noah story is the part we need to consider RIGHT NOW. I think we need to pray on who we want to be, and for the strength to endure the anguish of the survivor, as we look out from the deck railings.