Bogged Down In Details

When Noah received the instructions to build a boat he must have been overwhelmed by the gravity of what was going to happen. He would have wrestled with understanding the immense project that he was given to undertake. The macro view of this project would have staggered the mind of anyone. The facts of this project were simple enough. The world was to be destroyed by a flood. Noah was to build a very large boat. A selection of animals was to be housed in the boat for protection from the flood. When it was all done there would only be Noah, his wife, his sons and his sons' wives.

Some specific details regarding how the boat was to be built were given as well. These details were sufficient enough to get the boat building project started but not detailed enough to specify how each board and nail were to be set. Noah would need to determine such details on his own or he would need to delegate those specifics to someone he trusted, with the knowledge to get that part of the project accomplished.

Noah's main job in this huge effort was to focus on God's voice. He needed to continue to communicate with the Almighty one who gave him the task to begin with. H needed to focus on trusting the future outcome, knowing that God is true to his word. He did not need to get bogged down in detail work himself. God's special knowledge about the “hows” and “whens” would be left to God. Noah only need concern himself with the next task on the list of things to do.

Noah could have begun thinking about how the animals would be gathered together. Maybe he could have done a little research on animal behavior. He might have begun questioning how all of those animals would arrive in his back yard. How would he and his sons herd this menagerie onto this enormous boat? The scripture says each species went on to the boat according to it's kind. So there must have been some way to segregate animals into manageable categories. There needed to be some way of distributing food eventually to each individual animal.

Noah trusted God to bring the animals to the ark. He trusted God that he'd be provided the skills required to build a completely organized floating barn that would sustain all of this life for as long as God required. Trust and obey. Noah's only foreknowledge was that God was in control.

We often get bogged down in the minutiae of the task at hand. We understand the project. We possess the skills to accomplish the deed. We know the people to contact to find information about the skills we are fuzzy on. But often we wait for every detail of the project to be well defined and thought over before we begin. God doesn't require us to possess absolute surety about the tasks he gives us to do. After all, the very thing required to communicate with God in the first place is faith. God commands us to have faith. Faith, the evidence of unseen things, calls us to believe that the outcome will be accomplished while the details are left unknown.

We build a relationship with the creator of all things. We here his voice in thoughts and urgings. We understand the task. But often times we sit, thinking about details and questioning the wisdom of the project. What we should do is take the specifics we do have, as incomplete as they may be, and get started knowing that the God of mystery, knowledge and wisdom will “bring the animals in” when the time is right.