“By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house…”

 

– Hebrews 11:7 (KJV)

 

Let’s talk about Noah for a second.

Noah is one of those Bible stories we know so well that I think we accidentally skip over how absolutely crazy it must have looked while he was living it.

We know the ending. Noah didn’t.

God comes to Noah, a righteous man walking with Him in a world that had gone completely sideways, and tells him a flood is coming. Then God gives him instructions to build an enormous ark.

Now, Scripture does not give us a transcript of Noah’s conversations with his neighbors, his wife, or God while he was building. So give me a little room here. I’m imagining the scene, because there is no way this looked normal from the street.

I picture Noah standing there going, “A boat? God, You want me to build a boat? Here? A really, really big boat? People already think I’m a little different. This is not going to help.”

But Noah starts building anyway.

Day after day. Board after board. Hammer after hammer.

And you know the neighbors had to notice.

I can picture one of them walking by with his buddy: “Hey, Noah! How’s the boat coming?” Then as soon as they’re out of earshot: “That dude has completely lost it. Giant boat. Dry ground. Makes perfect sense.”

Another week goes by.

Still building.

Another month.

Still building.

And this was not a weekend project where Noah grabbed a couple buddies, ordered pizza, and knocked the thing out before Monday morning. This was a massive assignment. Life kept happening while he was building.

Kids still needed him. Work still had to get done. Dinner still had to happen. Things around the house still broke.

And in my completely imagined version, Mrs. Noah is standing at the door saying, “Noah! You’ve been out there working on that boat all day. Are you ever going to hang these pictures?”

And Noah is staring at the hammer in his hand thinking, “I am literally holding the tool required to solve both problems right now.”

But he’s been married long enough to know that thought should probably stay a thought.

So he keeps building.

Then I imagine there had to be days when Noah was just done.

Hot. Tired. Sweaty. Neighbors laughing. Family needs piling up. The ark still isn’t finished. The sky still looks exactly like the sky looked yesterday.

And maybe Noah looks up and says, “God, seriously? We’re still doing this? I’ve got a giant boat sitting on dry ground. The neighbors think I’m nuts. My wife wants pictures hung. The kids have stuff going on. I’ve got a thousand things I could be doing, and You still want me out here building this thing?”

And then he gets back to work.

Maybe a month later he has the same conversation, except this time with a little more attitude.

“God, I am still building the boat. Just so we’re clear. But there isn’t even dew on the ground. Nothing. Not a drop. Are You sure about this?”

Then, in my version of the story, somewhere way off in the distance…

BOOM.

Thunder.

Just one low rumble rolling across the sky.

Noah freezes.

Looks up.

Then I picture him pointing that hammer toward heaven like, “See? I knew it. You and me, God. We’re good. Never doubted You for a second.”

Sure, Noah.

Now here’s the part that isn’t imagined: Noah obeyed.

Hebrews 11:7 says Noah was warned by God about “things not seen as yet,” and he prepared the ark.

Things. Not. Seen. Yet.

That’s the whole thing.

Noah did not start building because he felt the first raindrop.

He built before the evidence showed up.

He built while the sky was clear.

And that is where faith gets hard.

Everybody wants to keep building after the first big customer shows up. Everybody wants to keep writing after the book becomes a bestseller. Everybody wants to keep posting after the phone starts ringing. Everybody wants to keep swinging the hammer once thunder is cracking over the horizon.

But what do you do when the sky stays blue?

What do you do when you’ve been faithful for a year and nothing seems to happen? Five years? Ten?

I know that feeling.

For close to a decade, I built my presence online around Eclipse DOT. I posted. I taught. I shared information. I tried to help people understand DOT compliance. I built an audience over years and years until there were tens of thousands of people following along.

And for a long time, there wasn’t some giant pile of business at the end of it.

No flood of customers.

No magical moment where I posted something at 8:03 in the morning and by lunch somebody drove a dump truck full of money into the parking lot.

Mostly, I just kept posting.

Hammer. Board. Hammer. Board.

Then one year, four customers came directly from that platform simply because we had consistently been there.

People sometimes see the customer and call it an overnight win.

They didn’t see the years of building before the rain.

I’m doing it again right now.

If you’re reading this devotional around the time I wrote it, you’re among the first people to know that I’m working on my second book, Nobody Follows a Parked Car.

I haven’t been running around announcing it to everybody. My editor knows. A few people close to me know. And right now we’re actually going back through it and rebuilding parts of the book because I didn’t love the way it was laid out.

Here’s the funny part: my first book, Grit, Grease, and Grace, hasn’t become the giant bestseller I want it to become yet.

So naturally, what am I doing?

Writing another book.

That sounds a little like building a boat under a blue sky, doesn’t it?

I could say, “I’ll write the next one after the first one explodes.”

I could wait for the rain.

But that’s not the assignment.

The assignment is to keep building.

And that brings us all the way back to where this Taking Action series started.

Knock.

You cannot stand twenty feet away from a door praying for God to open it while refusing to walk over and knock.

Pray first.

Nehemiah didn’t charge ahead without God. He prayed, listened, planned, asked, traveled, inspected, organized, and then rebuilt the wall. Prayer wasn’t where his action ended. Prayer told him where to put his hands.

Build when you’re stalled.

Joseph kept serving and leading in places he never asked to be. His circumstances were parked, but Joseph wasn’t.

And now Noah gives us the last piece:

Keep building when you can’t see the rain.

Taking action isn’t doing one brave thing and then sitting down.

Sometimes taking action is doing the same faithful thing again tomorrow.

And the next day.

And the next year.

When nobody applauds.

When the numbers aren’t impressive.

When the business hasn’t exploded.

When the book isn’t a bestseller.

When the neighbors think you’re nuts.

When your wife still wants the pictures hung.

When there isn’t a cloud in the sky.

If God told you to build, keep building until He tells you differently.

That last part matters. Faithfulness is not stubbornly beating on a door God has already closed. We talked about that in the first devotional. Keep praying. Keep listening. Ask God whether the assignment has changed.

But if it hasn’t?

Pick the hammer back up.

Your job isn’t to manufacture the rain.

Your job is to be faithful with the assignment.

God handles the rain.

So what have you stopped building because you couldn’t see results fast enough?

What did you start with conviction and then abandon because nobody noticed?

What have you been called to do that looks a little ridiculous under a clear sky?

Knock on the door.

Pray before you move.

Build where you are.

And when you still can’t see the rain…

keep building.

Because the first raindrop is way too late to start the ark.

Take Action

Write down one thing you believe God has called you to build, continue, or finish that you’ve been tempted to abandon because the results haven’t shown up. Then ask one question: Has God changed the assignment, or have I simply gotten tired of waiting for rain? If the assignment hasn’t changed, take one real step today. Pick the hammer back up.