How Long Can You Tread Water?

Every time I hear about Noah’s Ark, I think of Bill Cosby. Have any of you heard his bit on Noah? Well, there were actually 3 parts to that. The one you’re most familiar with involves the exchange between Noah and the Lord. The second part is the exchange between Noah and his neighbor. His neighbor is giving Noah grief about getting that boat out of his driveway so he can get to work. When the neighbor asks for a hint as to what the ark is for, Noah replies, “How long can you tread water?”

Finally in another conversation between Noah and the Lord, Noah loses it. He starts ranting and yelling at God, telling him he’s letting all the animals go and he’s burning the ark down. God asks Noah, “How long can you tread water?”

Cosby’s version is totally fictional, and totally wrong, of course. Noah may have been ridiculed by his neighbors but nothing in scripture implies that he ever argued with or yelled at God about his task. Noah was a man of faith who was obedient to God, even though he couldn’t possibly see the outcome.

The African Impala can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance of more than 30 feet. Yet they’re kept in a zoo caged in with a 3 ft. wall. The animals will not jump if they can’t see where their feet will fall. They won’t jump if they can’t see the outcome. Too many of us are like that. We’re shut down by a 3-foot wall. Just because we can’t see the other side, we won’t jump. It takes faith to leap over that wall.

Noah had this faith and obedience. You can’t spend 120 years building a 450 ft. long, 75 ft. wide, and 45 ft. high boat in the middle of a desert without faith and obedience. You can’t go around rounding up 35,000 pairs of animals, male & female, without faith and obedience.

Finally, it happens. The clouds and thunder and water come. Can you imagine what it must have been like when people, realizing what had happened, began to bang on the sides. Noah and his family, it tells us in chapter 7, verse 16, have been safely locked inside by the hand of God. Noah had done what he could. God used Noah to try and reach those that had turned their backs on God and His ways. The people had 120 years to change but they refused to listen.

The story of Noah’s Ark is a good one, but it’s more than just a kid’s story of animals two by two. It’s also a story about God using ordinary, everyday people with faith. And God is still using people like that today.

He won’t ask us to build an Ark in your backyard but he does still call us to be faithful.

He may call us to reach out to people that make us uncomfortable.

He may call us to take a risk financially in order to reach others.

He may call us to do something no one has ever done before.

He may call us to care for someone who won’t appreciate it.

He may call us to love someone we consider unlovable.

Most of all, He will call us to show faith and follow where He leads.

God can use you to do what you never thought possible. Just because you’ve failed in the past doesn’t mean that God can’t use you now. God is looking for someone to leap over that 3-foot wall. He’s looking for someone with the faith of Noah. Someone willing to simply do what He says. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to do things God’s way rather than your own? Are you willing to trust Him rather than yourself?