A detailed Design

Genesis 6:11-22

In the last years of my career I was blessed to work in a small group that was supported by the resources of the Electrical Markets Division of 3M.  That groups focus was major projects and in the beginning our Vice President named it, “The Global Market Creators” only to be changed to “Design and Build,” only to be changed once more about the time I was leaving the group.  Our goal was not that different from the people who were marketing lettuce, anyone could buy the lettuce as it comes from the field, but some smart marketers came up with a salad in a bag.  It cost more, but it made your job so easy when you are preparing a salad.  Like the marketer of lettuce, we had a product to sell and our goal was to show the project engineer the value of each part of his project coming to him with all the parts in a box; by doing this it would cut cost and eliminate waste.  It worked very well if the warehouse person did his job correctly, but if he did not the wrong parts went to the wrong places and the project was a disaster.  If the warehouse person would listen and obey all went wonderful, and if he didn’t, you might say the boat or project would sink.

Most of my life I’ve enjoyed working with wood, it a joy to begin with raw wood and end up with something that you can use, something that others may value.  I’ve learned the hard way that without a design you are asking for failure.  Noah is 500+ years old and it seems as if the earth was being watered by a mist that was coming up from the land, so the question is, has Noah never seen rain on the earth, has he ever seen a boat?  The answer seems to be no to both questions.

Noah would have a considerable problem if God had not given him a detailed design, in fact, if Noah was like some who say they are Christians, but who never open the manufacturers handbook on how to live life on planet earth, there would be no story to recall.  But Noah was a man of faith, and he believed the God that he could not see; Noah was dependent on God to show him every step of building an ark.  God gave Noah the design, the materials, number of rooms and the number of decks, the pitch to keep the water from encroaching and even how to set the door, so that the door would keep the floods out of the ark.  Noah never believed it was his design, for you see Noah knew and obey the Master Designer.  Genesis 6:22, “Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice