I Want to Build an Ark!!!!

I'm tempted to not to document this post.  It might seem like a fleece or like I'm challenging God.  I don't think I am necessarily, but at the same time, I want to be careful.  I'm just recording the thoughts that come to me and I do this on purpose as I wanted to write this as it happened as opposed to after it happened.  I think it shows the true faith journey as I don't know how things are going to turn out.  I also want to record it in case my prayers do get answered!  I know they will get answered ultimately, but I'm being pretty specific today, so I wanted to have a record of the request.  It will build up my faith and generations after me, too, including anyone who may read this, as I'm trying to literally document God's faithfulness.  I love looking back at things I've written in my journals over the years.  I find it so encouraging to remember the hard times and then see how He provided or stepped in in some way.  So read it knowing I'm truly trying to give God all the glory, not as a challenge....

We are nearing the end of the fast - one of the longest fasts of my life in some ways.  I'm always asking myself, or perhaps Satan is making me ask myself, "Why am I doing this again?????"    So I always check in, reminding myself why we are doing this and it always takes me back to Esther and how she and her people fasted for 3 days when they found out their people were going to be completely wiped out.  She was told perhaps she was made Queen "for such a time as this" to save her people.  But she needed a plan, so she fasted.  That is one of the reasons I am fasting, for a plan.  I'm asking God to reveal to Renaissance Man and me what He wants us to do.  Perhaps our people are not going to be wiped out, but then again....doesn't it feel sometimes, no matter what size the debt is, big or small, that there is this weight on our shoulders that is making us feel like we are being wiped out????  So that has to be the top reason - for a plan.

Why 40 days?  I could have just done a 3 day fast, too, but I felt this was more serious.  I was reminded yesterday of Noah.  We had studied Hebrews 11 a few weeks back in church, but I came across it again yesterday as I happened to be there in my personal reading plan, so I re-read it and stopped at the verses on Noah.  He was on the ark for 40 days and 40 nights.  God was wiping the world of sin.  It took that long to flood the earth.  He was preparing a new work for Noah.  Forty days is often a time of preparation as I've written before.  It is a time of discipline.  God often reveals something major, such as the Ten Commandments,  or starts a new ministry in someone's life, including His own Son, after the 40 days.  That was why I went with the idea of 40 days.  The things I've given up, I've NEVER given up this long and it's been hard.  But, I wanted God to do a work like I've never seen before, so I was willing to do whatever it took to be a part of that work.

I went back and read the story of Noah in Genesis.  I wanted to see if something else jumped out at me as I re-read the story.  Sure enough, over and over again, I noticed the phrase, "....and Noah did EVERYTHING God commanded him."  That was when the pieces started to fall together in my head.  God had asked Noah to build an ark!  So crazy!  I've written about this before, too, but it never ceases to amaze me that Noah obeyed and built an ark!  God really could have just sent him one to save him and his family, but he made Noah and his family build it, over, no doubt, many years.  So yesterday, I specifically sad to God, "I want to build an ark, too."  What do I mean, you might ask?  Well, as I thought about Esther, praying for a plan and then I thought about Noah, it occurred to me, God answered her prayers by revealing a way to talk to the King without getting killed.  She was able to save her people.  With Noah, there was the problem of all the sin on the Earth and yet his family was righteous.  God gave Noah a way to save his family and wipe out the sin of the world.  "Lord," I prayed, "Give us a way to wipe out the debt.  Give us a way of saving our future generations.  Give us an ark to build!"  Like I said, God didn't send an ark, He had Noah build it.  I'm not asking for the lottery or a cheque in the mail to magically wipe out debt.  I know we have to work for it.  I'm asking for the work!

This was the funny part.  As I kept reading in Ch. 11, I came across Abraham again.  The phrase that struck me there was he, too, was obedient and went where God wanted him to go "even though he did not know where he was going."  My prayer again, "Show us where you want us to go.  We'll go!"  Abraham and his children even "lived in tents" as they went to this foreign country.  I could relate.  Perhaps we haven't lived in tents, but anyone who knows this journey we've been on for 5 years would agree...we moved every few weeks there for a while, with 6 kids, and one on the way....it was as if we were nomads when we were building that house.  I still don't know how we got through that time except for the grace of God.  Actually I do know how we got through that time, it was just like Abraham, "For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God."  That was it.  We had forward thinking, still do, looking forward to a life of no debt...that was what kept us going.  His wife, Sarah, alongside him, was right there with him, full of faith as well.  And here's my favourite new phrase from the Bible, Abraham showed this faith when he was "as good as dead"!  So I literally prayed that, too, for my husband, who is getting weary from this gazelle intensity, "Lord, give us an ark to build, as my husband is as good as dead!"  Sounds funny, but I know he is tired.  Poor Abraham, finding out his wife was about to have a baby when he was in his last days!  Must have made him feel even older!  Yet God gave him a baby and I'm sure it energized him! 

So, does it seem like a fleece?  I don't know.  Perhaps God is even showing me how to pray?  Hebrews 11 later talks about how at any time the people of faith that are mentioned could have gone back to their home country.  Noah could have stopped building the ark.  Abraham could have gone home.  Sarah could have terminated the pregnancy.  NONE of them did.   What kept them going was their forward thinking, "Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one."  That really struck me, too.  Their longing.  That is what it is for me, too, a longing.  I've had that feeling before when I longed for more babies.  Anyone who has wanted to be pregnant understands that longing....it is all you can think about day and night.  Before that, it was a longing to be married.  I don't think I could have been accused of discontent when I had these longings.  Quite the opposite, actually.  I think God placed those longings in my heart.  The sin would have been to sit there in my house and hope a prince came along.  I never did that.  The longing motivated me to be the most eligible bachelorette out there!  It motivated me to seek God and develop the qualities He wanted in me that would draw the right man into my life.  Same with a baby - I couldn't sit in my house and just hope for a baby.  I had to stay active, give to those around me, seeking God all the time as I waited.  I never knew if He was going to give me a husband or a baby, but I rested in the fact He had put those longings in my heart, so by faith, I really trusted Him to be faithful.  One of my favourite verses during those years of waiting was from Isaiah, "For He longs to be gracious to you."  That was such an encouragement to me.  Getting out of debt has got to be a longing placed there by God, too, but just like with the longing for a husband or a baby, I cannot just sit here and hope for a miracle.  I am asking God to show us what we can do, in addition to the things we are already doing.  I think we need a job to do that is ark-like in its scale, so I'm asking for an ark.  I want to build an ark!  Ok, I know that it will probably not be me building it.  It'll be my husband who is "as good as dead", so that is why I'm thinking and praying, "Lord, show it to us soon!" 

Remember, God doesn't always answer how we hope and even that is an answer, so though I'm asking boldly, really boldly, I know that I must be content with no ark if that is His will.  But, if we get an ark-type job, I'll be thrilled!

Ok, it's documented.  It's in God's hands.  Now I wait.