Flooded

“Have a good weekend!” That’s the line you exchange with every and anyone on any given Friday afternoon. Know them or not, like them or not, the same well wishes are exchanged. Well, this weekend there was the minor modification of adding the word “long” before “weekend”, and for once the denotative and connotative meanings are the same. Long. Lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-n-n-n-n-g weekend. Not only is there an extra day of it, but my new roomie, Carmen (Grade 1 teacher), and I have been putting in 8+ hours of school prep in each day this weekend. Long is right.

The past week has been saturated with school meetings, prep, work, organization... the works, and during that time, one of the only thoughts that surfaces to calm a stressed mind is Genesis 6:8 (KJV), “And Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”

You see, Noah was one in a million, and God knew that. He was a man who lived his life in pursuit of God, with God, in response to God. And God asked him to do the unthinkable in a world that knew neither God nor the concept of rain: build a boat because I, God, am going to flood the world and destroy everything wicked in it. For the next 100 years, Noah obeyed. One splintered gopher wood board at a time (that almost sounds like a swear... I’m sure Noah said it a few times at least!). The people who knew Noah, saw Noah, were introduced to Noah, or perhaps even made a pilgrimage to see “the dude who’s gone insane and is building a ship the size of two football fields in the middle of the desert” let him know just how dumb it was to do the work of the Lord. Perhaps even Noah’s sons had started to drift into the ways of the world as they were married to girls from town... did they wonder if their father had completely lost it, and helped him out only out of a sense of family duty? Perhaps.

Yes, perhaps. But once the rain did fall, and the flood did wipe out all but the small nuclear family and their unlikely zoological cargo, just maybe a few other thoughts started to crowd in on their minds. If I were one of Noah’s daughter-in-laws I would have held my tongue and never doubted the crazy ideas of my father-in-law again. Moreover, I would have found out exactly what it means to trust God since what he promises (no matter how long it takes to happen) happens. If I were Noah, I might have jumped ship and screamed, “Take me, too!” But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Welcome to this week. A small ship, built and preserved by the Lord, could easily seem a small, aimless speck in the ocean of the world around me. But the fact that Noah’s boat was not a prison but a place of safety, security, and new life is of encouragement to me. The tasks before me are more than overwhelming, but I know that God is steering my course, providing for my needs, and keeping me afloat in an uncertain world. Without Him, I would be among those surprised by the flood, rather than prepared to be flooded.

So, after a very long weekend of preparation and planning for the start of classes on Tuesday, I can confidently say that the first day of classes will come and go, and I’ll still be floating. I have found grace in the eyes of the Lord.