Built Before The Rain
So Noah did everything as the Lord commanded him.
Noah was 600 years old when the flood covered the earth. He went on board the boat to escape the flood—he and his wife and his sons and their wives. With them were all the various kinds of animals—those approved for eating and for sacrifice and those that were not—along with all the birds and the small animals that scurry along the ground. They entered the boat in pairs, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. After seven days, the waters of the flood came and covered the earth. Genesis 7:5–10 (NLT)
Outside of writing devotions, I spend much of my time writing about leadership. A great deal of that work centers on what we are responsible for: how we lead our teams, how we serve the people entrusted to us, and how we keep growing as leaders ourselves. But the longer I do this, the more I am convinced of one quiet truth: the most difficult person any of us will ever lead is not the one across the table. It is the one in the mirror. We are quick to coach others and slow to correct ourselves. We can name what someone else should change long before we are willing to own what we should.
The same pattern follows us into our faith. We can become very good at telling others how to live quoting verses, pointing clearly to what is right and what is wrong in God’s eyes. But when Scripture presses against something we believe or asks us to change something we would rather protect, we meet the edge of our own willingness. We discover we are not struggling to understand God’s teaching. We are struggling to accept it. And sometimes what feels like God withholding from us is something simpler and harder: we have not yet shown ourselves ready to carry more.
That is what struck me in the story of Noah. We tend to picture the flood, the animals, and the sheer size of the task. But Genesis tells us the assignment did not begin with the rain. Long before the first command about the boat, we read that Noah “was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God” (Genesis 6:9). The readiness came first. The faithfulness came first. Only then do we read that Noah “did everything as the Lord commanded him.” That he gathered his family and the animals and waited seven days for waters he could not yet see was the story. The flood was the end result.
Noah’s accountability was not loud. It was the slow, daily work of walking closely with God when no one was watching and no flood was coming. That is the part we tend to skip. We want the significant responsibility without the unremarkable preparation that makes us capable of carrying it. But greater trust is rarely handed to us in a single dramatic moment. It is built quietly, in the small things we are willing to own now: the apology we keep avoiding, the habit we keep excusing, the correction we keep deflecting. God does not entrust an ark to someone still unwilling to take responsibility for a rowboat.
A pastor who preached on Noah asked a question I have not been able to set down: What is the greater responsibility God may be asking you to carry because of your faithfulness? It is worth sitting with. But there may be a question that comes before it. A smaller, more honest one. What is the thing in front of me, right now, that I keep refusing to own? Because the readiness to be trusted with more almost always begins there, in the quiet decision to be accountable for what is already ours.
Where am I waiting for a bigger calling while avoiding the smaller accountability already in front of me? What would it look like to walk faithfully today before any flood appears on the horizon?
My prayer is that we would have the courage to look honestly at ourselves before we look at anyone else. Help us own what is ours, grow where we have been resisting, and walk closely with You in the unremarkable days. Make us faithful in the small things, so that whatever You choose to entrust to us, we are ready to carry it well. Amen.