One man can change History

Genesis 6:6-9

My mother and dad loved me, and wanted the best for me, and yet I chose to rebel against all the authority that was placed over me, but never in your face rebellion, that would have caused great pain to me, from my dad, no I just acted one way at home and then did what I wanted.  Those early patterns of rebellion were against God, and I knew that in my heart, but for many years that is how I lived.  Often my mind goes back to my early years, why was I like that?  It was my independent spirit, and the action of that spirit grieved the heart of God, that is the message of Genesis 6:6-7.  “And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.  So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

While vacationing in New Zealand I decided to climb a mountain by the harbor, Jan and Barb were shopping and Joe had retuned to the ship; as I was going up the path it came to an abrupt stop, I looked back at the path of rock layer that was steeply inclined and stood out from the mountain, and then I gaze ahead not knowing what to do?  Man’s best efforts of negotiating the mountains paths of life without God are always a model for failure.  God’s design for man was dependence on God in all things and in all ways, but the flesh has rebelled since sin entered into the world, by Adam’s choosing to do it his way, and that act has brought about the desire to live independently from God; that grieves the heart of God. 

If you’re the creator, and you are not happy with the end product, you have every right to annihilate the project and if you choose, to begin with a new design.  Look what the Master Designer said in Genesis 6:7;  “So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”  It sure looks like we have a problem, “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”  That is what verse eight tells us, in fact verse 9 states, “These are the generations of Noah.  Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.  Noah walked with God.”  One righteous man, the word righteous; “being in right standing with God” that was Noah, and his desire to depend on God, in the middle of a people who were corrupt and filled with violence, is the only thing that kept God from blotting out man.  Often I pose this question to myself; do I depend on God, are my thoughts and focus on what I have or do not have or do I desire to walk with God?  The bottom-line is; I have focus problems, my focal point is on people, things, or situations and not on Jesus.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice