Walk with God...

Noah built the ark. He and his family entered the boat. God shut the door. "It rained and poured for forty day-sies, day-sies." The entire population of the earth, save those on board the ark, was wiped out by the world-wide flood that resulted. Noah, Shem, Ham, Japheth and their wives alone were saved along with hundreds of animals, two of each kind.

When the water receded and the ship rested on Ararat, Noah stepped out on dry ground and worshiped God. And God honored Noah with a promise. He made a vow to his friend that he wouldn’t wipe out the earth by flood again. He put a rainbow in the sky to remind him for all time of his promise. He said he’d see it and show mercy.

That's the familiar part of the story, the part every kids picture book tells.

But there's more to the story. Noah life wasn't all ship-building. He lived for a little over 500 years before God stopped by and made him a shipwright. He spent 80 or 90 years building his gopher-wood life boat and then sailed the "high" seas in it for only just over a year. He exited the ark and lived 350 more years, dying at the ripe old age of 950. The popular part of Noah's biography covers a relatively short period of his life, about one ninth, maybe a tenth, of his years on earth.

Do you know what Noah did during the 500 plus years that he lived before God commanded him to build the ark? No songs have been written about this part of his life. No storybooks tell the tale, but the Bible does tell us what he did with his first five centuries. Any guesses? The answer is this: Noah walked with God. That's it.

Genesis 6:9 , "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God." (NIV)

500 plus years of life condensed to one sentence.

Noah walked with God. Do you understand what that means?

During the summer, my wife and I often take walks in the evening. We follow the same route most nights, looping around the north half of town. Occasionally we do a down-and-back to the River Park . While we're walking, we talk. We catch up on what's new with each other. We work through problems. We share feelings. We plan days to come. It's a very pleasant and profitable time.

Walking with God is very much like that I think. It's living life in constant communication with the lover of our souls. That's who he is, you know? God loves us. He sent his Son, Jesus, to die for us so we could have a relationship with him. And so he loves it when we walk with him - catching up on what's new, working through problems, sharing feelings, planning days to come.

Let me quote just a little bit of Phil Vischer's post-VeggieTales story from his book, Me, Myself, & Bob.

These are the words he uses to describe his life after weeks of struggling with God, wondering why his Father had let Big Idea go under. They reflect the change that came over Phil after hours of reading God's word and praying, after Phil finally died to himself and his dreams and yielded to God.

"…I heard myself say to my wife one night, 'I don't want to write anything.' I was ready to be done, if that's what God wanted. To just rest in him and let everything else fall away. At long last, after a lifetime of striving, God was enough. Not God and impact or God and ministry. Just God.

"And then, a few weeks later, something interesting happened. I was lying in bed, pondering a spiritual truth that God has impressed upon me. Hmm, I thought, I should write that down and save it for a speaking opportunity. But then suddenly the lesson sprang to life in my head, not as a sermon, but as a story about two pigs in business suits who, though they live right next door, don't know each other's names. Within an hour the whole story was clear in my head. I walked to my office the next day and, a few hours later, had the finished text for a picture book based on a story so simple, yet capturing such a deep spiritual truth that the first time I read it to my wife, she cried. And I thought, 'Oh…is this how it’s going to work now?'" (p. 246)

Noah walked with God. Phil is learning to do the same. Are you ready to give up your striving and join them? God is enough. Stop running ahead. Walk.

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