The story of Noah is a very popular story in the Bible, one you can learn a lot from. In the story we read that Noah receives word from some kind of “higher authority” to build a boat. Now what a crazy thing to do in the middle of the desert, don’t you think? But was he really that crazy or did he just have faith?
Noah’s actions was definitely an act of faith. He didn’t have any proof that it will rain and that he should build a boat, but he had absolute faith in something or someone he couldn’t see.
The task given wasn’t small, it wasn’t big either, it was an enormous task, something one wouldn’t easily do by oneself. Noah needed fifteen hundred gopher trees witch took them forty years to collect. The boat is said to be 135 meters long and 14 meters high. This clearly isn’t a boat just for show.
Building a boat isn’t for any ordinary guy, especially one this big, but Noah wasn’t any ordinary guy, he was a man of faith and determination. He had to stand tall and keep strong trough a lot of mocking, insults and people making fun of him, something one could only do if you had absolute faith and determination.
The building of the boat took hundreds of years, and surely it couldn’t have been easy waking up each morning to continue building. I mean, I would have given up a long time ago.
Noah didn’t do this all by himself, he had the help of his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet. But they weren’t so optimistic like their father. At first they thought he was crazy although they still had respect for him and obeyed him. It was only after they visited the prophet that they believed their father, for the prophet said there will be rain. After that they obeyed their father 100%, but still with little enthusiasm.
Many years of hard work paid of in the end, because just as they finished putting all the animals in, the rain came pouring down.