Overwhelming Obedience

Lately I've been terribly bogged down by the weight of all the different things going on in my life. When I start listing out all the different things that I should be doing, I just end up wanting to go to sleep. So in reading more about Noah today, I identify with what he must have been feeling after chapter 6, verses 14-21:

So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.

"Yea, no, excellent God, oh, yea, I can do all that, no problem. Now, cypress wood, where would I start to find that. Maybe after I take a short nap." I mean seriously, Noah is given way too big of a task for one man to carry out on his own, just in building the ark. Then he is also given the task of filling the ark with animals and because he needs to keep them alive, food for the animals. Wow. It stresses me out just to think about Noah having to do all that.

And what's my favorite way of dealing with the stress of too much to do? I avoid it. I avoid doing the things that I have to do all together. I've got papers that need to be graded sitting all around my classroom, I need to work on an offseason tennis plan, I need to talk to Exodus Community pastors about being more intentional, more excellent, I need to be more excellent as a pastor myself by spending more time in the Word, by getting more involved with the individuals in our community, by becoming more involved with individuals not in our community, by challenging our current pastors and leading the church. Whew. I didn't even add in there yet that I need to prepare for Gideon coming, or the teaching that I'm doing, or the middle school basketball season starting in a week.

Now, maybe the difference is that Noah was directed in his tasks by You. They were specific things that You wanted him to accomplish. I can't imagine that Noah had a whole lot of anything else going on besides what You called him to. That's what enabled him in the end to have this said about him:

Noah did everything just as God commanded him. (Genesis 6:22)

All that huge stuff, big ark and zookeeping, that You directed him to do and this is all we're told? That seems entirely too simple. The emphasized point here though is that he did what You asked him to, just as You asked him too. No comment about him being overwhelmed, ridiculed, questioned, tired, busy, not having enough time for family, etc. Those things may have happened, but the important part, the written part of the story is that Noah did what You asked.

So what are You asking from me? I've been struck lately with the sense that we, the pastors of Exodus Community, have shyed away from really giving more time and making things more excellent in any way because of our lack of time. I see that excuse for myself and say, "um, that's an excuse, not a reason to not do what God is prompting you to." Plain and simple, something must be done about the time crisis. Otherwise, You aren't going to remember me with a simple "Matt did everything just as I commanded him."

So what sacrifice has to be made? I willing to give it all up, even the good. What do you want and where do I start?

And hopefully You'll make it that simple.