Building an Ark

What God told Noah to do when He told him to build a big boat was not something which could be done in secret.  It was not the kind of project done inside the work shop.  What Noah did was seen by everyone and, surely, as the neighbors watched they laughed and ridiculed him.  Noah was obviously someone who had gone off the deep end.  Nothing about what he did spoke of logic and common sense.  Building an ark because the world was about to be flooded was the work of a fool. 

It is not likely that God is telling anyone of us to build an ark.  A promise has been made that one will never be needed as Noah needed it, but this does not mean that God will not ask us to be about some things that people around us will regard as the action of someone who is taking religion too seriously.  I remember a friend of mine who took his wife and small children to Africa because of his call to be a missionary and ended up escaping in the midst of a revolution with nothing more than his life and the life of his family.  Some no doubt thought he should have stayed home because God would never ask him to put his family in such danger, but the history of the gospel going forward is filled with folks who dared to say "yes" to a thing that defied common sense.

When God calls us to go forward in accomplishing what He has in mind, it is often the case that what God has in mind is known only to Him.  Our view of what it means to be called and to be obedient is a thing that speaks of limited vision and a faith that does not require more.  It does not have to be as big a thing as building a big boat.  It can be something as small as going to someone who has wronged us and seeking restoration even though the world says it is not our place to do so.  People may shake their head at us and call us "a weak pushover," but what those around think is nothing when God's bidding take us a different way.