Do you ever sing this Sunday school song with your little people?
“Who built the Ark? Robin, Robin.
Who built the Ark? Mother Robin built the Ark.”
Perhaps not. But it’s a song I hum from time to time. You should try it; feel free to substitute your name in place of mine.
It took Noah more than 100 years to build the Ark. He’d never even seen rain and he wasn’t in the shipbuilding business. But he had faith. He trusted. He had resilience not just to work, but he had the strength of mind and godly character to wait for the promised result of his work.
Wait and work.
I have the working part down. I’m a hard-working mother, a person who works from home, a woman who loves to work with kids. “W” is literally my middle initial, and work is what I do. Okay, waiting? Not so much.
I often use Noah as an example with my little people. If anyone followed directions to a tee, it was Noah. God gave him exact specifications for constructing the vessel that would save himself, his family, the animals—the world as Noah knew it. If it had been up to my little people, the Ark’s inhabitants might have found themselves clinging to floating olive branches and random pieces of gopher wood, for that great boat would have broken up at the end of Day Four.
Why? Because my children are good for winging it, for thinking on the fly. These are great skills to have when they’re doing critical thinking exercises or sitting in art class—maybe they should just cut the knot in half if they can’t untie it or mix their drips of yellow and red when they need to paint a fiery orange sunset. If they don’t have grape jelly, sure, strawberry jam will work.
Sometimes, however, they struggle to follow directions exactly. If I ask for X, W, and Z, Think Tank substitutes Y for W because he thinks I made a mistake. The Crusader just brings Z because that’s the last thing he heard while he finished his YouTube video. Songbird retrieves W, X, Y, and Z to cover all her bases. I respond, “Don’t ask me what I mean. Just do what I say.” (Yes, I know, that’s one of those weird parent-type turns of phrase, but my little people get the point.) Well, Noah did just that. By faith, he followed directions exactly because he believed God meant what He said.
Like Noah, I trust and work and yes, I even wait (not happily). I look at each child as an Ark. While Noah used pitch to waterproof and preserve I use other means to make my children seaworthy, these individual vessels of God’s salvation. Each requires something special to float: M & M takes a firm hand to guide him while I can steer Brown Sugar with a single firm look; raising my voice sinks her ship immediately. Maven is on a diet of hugs to round out her sharp edges, but the Crusader’s needs are less physical, more intangible. Songbird loves affirmation, Think Tank enjoys quiet conversation, and the Lone Ranger just wants to go first every once in a while. Raising them, loving them, getting to know them is a labor of love—or, in other words, work.
And just like Noah, this parenting work also takes faith and waiting to realize its fruits.
In 1 Corinthians 3:6-9 Paul writes, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building.” These buildings, my Arks, must be fit to sail on these turbulent seas. The skies are often stormy; they may be “driven and tossed by the wind.” The depths they plough through are briny and filled with sharks and sea urchins and other creatures lurking below calm waters. Eddie and I try to build them (up) according to God’s specifications, His Word, but just like my little people, we sometimes wing it; we stray from the manifest and put our own coordinates in. And if we stray off course, so do they.
But by faith, we keep plugging along. And we wait, knowing that God gives the increase. We made it through those 40 long weeks of pregnancy to see what would be birthed; now we find ourselves waiting rather impatiently at times, as we watch them grow, as we enjoy and fret and pray and wonder while we water and feed and God prunes. We do so because we know God keeps His promises, even if our own hearts fail us, if our tender shoots appear to fail to thrive.
To mix this metaphor a little further, in Noah’s case God provided the Who (God. Noah); the what—the imperative (“It’s going to rain. They’re going to perish. I’m going to save you.”); the when (“Right now—give or take 100 years.”); the where (“Right here.”); the how (“An Ark—this tall, this wide, made of gopher wood.”); and the why (“I love you.”). In my own building projects, I always know Who (God and us) and why (His unfailing love), but sometimes I feel like I’m building blind, like the other questions go unanswered. Yet I’ve just got to work and wait according to His perfect way and will, knowing He always keeps His promises.
In Eddie’s Mother’s Day card he added up the months and days I’ve enjoyed motherhood. According to his calculations, I’m celebrating my 18th Mother’s Day, starting with the year I was pregnant with my first. This includes 10 years (and counting) of homeschooling; 14 years of changing Pampers; 17 years (and counting) of sleepless nights; 67 months of pregnancy; 84 months of nursing; and months of potty training, hours of tying shoes, and untold days, months, and years of crying tears of pain and joy. Now, just like people approximate Noah’s 120 years of Ark-construction, I estimate my children-building time as well. I may end up somewhere near Noah before it’s all said and done, but when God works on His numbers I hope He counts me faithful, obedient, and satisfied and not just tired from all this hard work.
Your voice take me to the seventh heaven in a seconds.