Preparing for an Emergency—Two

Now it’s a good thing Noah didn’t live in America today. I read recently of a man facing charges from city government for not completing his boat in the time frame in which he was originally granted. The city was going to move the boat, completed or not, away from the guys home because the boat had been an eyesore too long. In my neighborhood, I agreed to something called CC&Rs, which restricts me to lots of things beyond what the county ordinances disallow. No way could I build a boat on my acre of land; I’m not allowed to have a ham radio antenna.

And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.

Luke 17:26,27

We are an increasingly urban society in America. This means lots of people crammed together coexisting, or at least trying to do so. In the area in which I now reside, which was rural not too long ago when I moved here, growth has brought us to a point nearly suburban, which means we still have some open land left to pillage, and no high-rise buildings in clusters. Things are a bit less concentrated, but we have industrial and office complexes appearing next to neighborhoods. Roads running by the neighborhoods are snarled with automobiles when employees head to work or to home, and often during the day. Schools are crowded, while new ones are built and filled quickly to overflowing. And there seems to be no end in sight. It also means that we are within a mile of a grocery store in a large shopping plaza. Each plaza seems to have a salon, a shop to do ladies’ nails, dry cleaners, and a restaurant or two, and several fast-food places.

Urbanites don’t keep food on the shelf, it seems. One of my neighbors admitted he had absolutely nothing in his cupboard, that his family either ate out or picked something up to bring home each day. I’m not from that lifestyle. To use a line from a song, “I’m a little more country than that.”

I grew up in rural areas, lived most of my adult life in rural areas. During season, we ate a lot of fresh produce from farm stands. My mother shopped sales and stocked the pantry with as much as we could afford. They also travelled about a hundred miles to an Air Force base to shop at the commissary—saving a lot of money doing so. The only things they needed to buy more frequently were perishables that wouldn’t freeze. They didn’t call it “Prepping”; it was just a way of life.

There are other reasons to have a large pantry. One example is one community in which I lived, up in northern California. Winter storms rolled through at least once each year that closed the main interstate that runs between California to Washington. It could stay closed for several days. After the first day of the storm, the store shelves were bare, and no shipments arrived until the interstate reopened. We either had a minimally stocked pantry, or went without.

It’s time for you to look in a cupboard, or closet, or where ever you store food, to see what’s on hand. Let me know what you find. How long can you exist, not thrive, but just exist on what you have on hand? Until Friday, then.

Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .

Preparing for an Emergency—One

Back in the day, it was Survivalist; today it is a Prepper. The word isn’t yet in the dictionary, but that doesn’t stop about 7,490,000 results (in 0.34 seconds) in a search on Google. While once a fringe in society, like, ah yes, environmentalists, preppers are popping up all over, like Georgia wildflowers after a gentle rain. Now the popular media, television, has a show called Doomsday Preppers. Whether one is a Survivalist or a Prepper, or just hoping to survive a local natural calamity, like a hurricane, the idea of preparedness isn’t new; it goes way, way, way back—to at least Noah.

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die. But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee. And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them. Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

Genesis 6:11-22

Did you watch the movie 2012? There were three arks depicted. It took a lot of engineers to develop a system in which those arks would survive what was to come in the movie. So here’s Noah, perhaps a farmer and hunter who may never have seen a boat in his life (I don’t know, but just guessing). Perhaps the most water he may have seen was a river swollen after a sudden desert rain. So G-d, Who is an excellent Engineer, gives Noah detailed plans. Noah follows along, just like build-by-the-numbers- construction sets, and gives birth to a pretty cool boat. Well, maybe it was a ship. It was big.

Noah is often shown as being laughed at by those around him. Hum, a lot like the Survivalists of the late 70s, the Preppers of today. I can’t recall where it came from, perhaps from some Sunday school lesson a long time ago, but somehow I got the notion of Noah not really having a clue to what he was doing. It’s like he might say, “Hey, I don’t know what it’s for, I’m just following orders.” This can’t be a true representation of Noah, which is why I find suspect some of the way kids are taught the Bible. Even if Noah didn’t totally know what was going on at first, one can’t think ill of him if it were, for at least he followed orders. (And it was nice of him to do so, as it sounded like G-d didn’t have a lot of good folks to choose from back then, and he’d already “repented” of his creation, giving up on the whole “Let’s create man in our image” thing.)

Matthew Henry commented that “Noah [was] distinguished from the rest of the world, and a peculiar mark of honor put upon him. When God was displeased with the rest of the world, he favored Noah. Being a good man, He found him out, and smiled upon him. He was made a vessel of God’s mercy. God makes Noah the man of His counsel, communicating to him His purpose to destroy this wicked world by water, as afterwards, He told Abraham His resolution concerning Sodom (Genesis 18:17). The secret o f the Lord was with His servants the prophets (Amos 3:7) by a spirit of revelation, informing them particularly of His purpose.”

Noah had to have seen the corruptness in the world that he knew. He had to have been removed from that evil, too. Maybe he wasn’t perfect, just like us, but at least he caught G-d’s attention. He also must have seen some natural signs that made all the work and harassment he received from people around him, worth continuing until the ark was complete. Once it was done, how long did Noah have to wait until G-d decided it was time? Could have been a while. And once it was time to start loading, how long did that take? That could have taken a while, too. It’s hard enough sometimes to get my daughter’s dog to return to the house when she’s licking her lips at the scent of rabbit; she just wants to sit still, like a hunter in a stand, waiting for dinner to appear on four legs. I can’t imagine gathering up a whole bunch of animals, trying to care for the first few while gathering more. I’m sure the whole process has been expounded upon by a witty preacher trying to make a point about something or other.

The series continues Wednesday, in the meantime take a look at Genesis and think about parallels between the days of Noah and these days.

Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .

Back to Basics—Five

Two more points in my reading of Ezra that I initially suggested were: G-d’s prophets must stir up the people AND appeal to non-Jewish leaders to honor previously granted commitments to G-d’s people while declaring they are following the G-d of Israel; Once again, a non-rebellious, non-Jewish leader looks reasonably into the records and sees that the Jews are entitled to rebuild their temple, and commits to help also.

In my reading of Ezra, even though the rebuilding of the Temple had been objected to, and the Jews ordered to stop work, it continued. Perhaps it continued only very slowly. Perhaps it was problematic even among the Jewish Returnees. I can image some Jews saying to others who might be working on the Temple, “Hey, we have orders not rebuild. We have to honor those orders.” I can also imagine some Jews beginning to side with the non-Jewish residents of the area, even telling them when building is going on so that protests can be made. Non-Jews then would be telling the Jews not to follow G-d’s desires, not to follow after G-d’s heart, that the king had ordered them to stop.

Finally a couple of men begin to see things from G-d’s perspective, and encourage actively rebuilding the Temple. And this time, these wise men appeal to the king based upon King Cyrus’s decree. And they win. The decree is located in the archives, and permission is granted to continue the building. Not only does the current king, King Darius, allow it to begin, he helps fund it.

Let the work of this house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews build this house of God in his place. Moreover I make a decree what ye shall do to the elders of these Jews for the building of this house of God: that of the king’s goods, even of the tribute beyond the river, forthwith expenses be given unto these men, that they be not hindered. And that which they have need of, both young bullocks, and rams, and lambs, for the burnt offerings of the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the appointment of the priests which are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail: That they may offer sacrifices of sweet savours unto the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons.

Ezra 6:7-10

King Darius even desires prayers be made for him and his sons. Once again, a non-Jewish leader has reverence for the Lord, G-d of All.

Ezra provides a picture of Restoration. It models getting back to the basics. Once apart, we must get back to a stable place from where we can begin to celebrate in the Lord in the Community of Believers. We can then rebuilt our selves as Temples of the LORD. It seems clear that today, as Believers, we will go through periods in our lives in which we find resistance to our focus. And as we begin to slow down our work, our hope is that G-d will send someone to encourage us in our journey, our seeking, of G-d’s heart. We seek G-d’s heart and His Temple in us is restored.

There are other lessons in the remaining chapters of Ezra. There is another group of exiles to return. There are more corrections to be made in the religious observance of the Jews in Israel. It is like this for us, too. We ascend a tower, following a circular stairway. We look out a window each new level, and see more of the landscape then previous levels. We continue on. We will do this our entire lives, until the Lord calls us to Him, in death or in His return to Earth. We grow. And every now and then we must take a time in which we return to the basics, renewing our vows and journey with our Messiah, Y’shuaJesus.

Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .