Genesis 7: Do what you can do and leave the rest to God

OK, first off - I missed uploading yesterday's ponderings, but I still did the study in the morning. I was rushed for time, and figured it wouldn't exactly displease any followers to miss a day as I didn't have any. Then I log on this morning, and low and behold there is my first follower: thanks Jane! So now I will stick to it :)

My thoughts today actually include a verse from chapter 6 too, but it really only makes sense with Chapter 7 involved.

6:13-22 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.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.
19You 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.
21You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.” Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

The main bit I am looking at here is the last bit, verse 22, where Noah did everything just as God commanded him.Noah then built the ark, and in verse 16 of chapter 7 we read:

7:16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah.

What hit me today about this is the way Noah did not reason or doubt, or question God as to how his seemingly impossible task would come to fruition. He focused on what he was told to do at that moment, which was to build the ark, and God took care of the rest (the animals). As my favourite preacher, Joyce Meyer, is fond of saying, if we do what we CAN do, God will do what we CANNOT do. We need to focus on what IS under our control and leave the rest to God.

7:2 Take with you seven† of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate,

What I love about this is the way that we, as readers of the Bible, have yet to be told about clean and unclean animals, but obviously Noah knew all about it. It just makes me think about how the Bible doesn't record absolutely everything about God, which is pretty amazing I think. Obviously Noah knew the details from somewhere (from God himself?) but we don't read about that.

Finally, something I thought today about the whole chapter - we can often see God's flooding the world as something that is brutal and vicious, yet it hit me today that it was HIS to do with how he pleased. For example, if we painted a painting and weren't happy with it, we could do what we liked with it - this is the same with God. We can get so hung up on our own supreme self worth, but at the end of the day he is the potter and we are the clay, and what he wants to do is up to Him!