When faith is tested we like immediate vindication. Sometimes faith leads into a lifelong process. Take Noah, he was given a significant challenge –
“Build a large boat from cypress wood … Make the boat 450 feet long…” (Genesis 6:14-15NLT)
This was to be the world’s largest ship till Brunel built the SS Great Eastern in 1858!
When building something normal, techniques exist. Noah would have to make up construction techniques as he went along. How many times did he start again because the logs were too weak to sustain the weight?
How was Noah’s faith sustained through a hundred years of building? How many times did he quit? How many years did the construction lie dormant? Yet ultimately –
So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him. (Genesis 6:22NLT)
What hope in that commendation!
What sustained Noah for 100years of ridicule, building this huge structure at vast expense? With no external vindication we often begin to doubt. Did God really say …? There was no creeping destruction for validation.
Two promises sustained him.
“Look! I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die. But I will confirm my covenant with you. So enter the boat—you and your wife and your sons and their wives. (Genesis 6:17-18NLT)
A coming judgement and a covenant relationship with God. May we too have faith to live to the end the life God sets before us.