Minimalist Bible: Noah's Ark - The Great Flood

Written by Chad -

God has given me the idea to pursue a personal design project of creating minimalist posters to share the awesome stories of the Bible. If you missed out on previous posters, don't worry, I have created a landing page where you can easily catch up. Check it out here.

The next poster series comes from a story that we have all heard from our childhood—Noah's Ark. I'm excited today to reveal The Great Flood, part four of a seven part series.

The Great Flood comes from Genesis 7:11-24 (NLT) which says, "When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the underground waters erupted from the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky.  The rain continued to fall for forty days and forty nights. That very day Noah had gone into the boat with his wife and his sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—and their wives.  With them in the boat were pairs of every kind of animal—domestic and wild, large and small—along with birds of every kind.  Two by two they came into the boat, representing every living thing that breathes.  A male and female of each kind entered, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord closed the door behind them.

For forty days the floodwaters grew deeper, covering the ground and lifting the boat high above the earth.  As the waters rose higher and higher above the ground, the boat floated safely on the surface.  Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth,  rising more than twenty-two feet above the highest peaks. All the living things on earth died—birds, domestic animals, wild animals, small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the people.  Everything that breathed and lived on dry land died.  God wiped out every living thing on the earth—people, livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and the birds of the sky. All were destroyed. The only people who survived were Noah and those with him in the boat.  And the floodwaters covered the earth for 150 days."

The day had finally arrived. Doomsday showed up and knocked out the world with one swift upper cut. No one in the world saw it coming, except for one man—Noah. He stayed faithful throughout the entire process of building the boat, gathering the best zoo exhibit (even those pesky termites) and trusting in God to keep his family safe when the water started to rise. Noah's journey had just begun. 

Any journey you take with God will be hard. There is no use sugar-coating it. Even in comic books, the hero has a great challenge that he/she has to overcome in order to save the world. For Noah, his greatest challenge might have been keeping the lions away from the zebras. We don't know what happened on the boat during their time out at sea. What we do know is that when we head down the path toward God, we often start to experience a season of doubt—past failures, discouraging words, and other sneaky mental obstacles creep in. If Noah had let his doubts get in the way of what God had called him to do, we may not be here today! What should we do when the voices in our head begin drowning out God's calling for us?

We call on God to save us from ourselves.  

Like Noah, we must stomp out the doubts that become obstacles on the journeys that God has called us to take. God will be there to guide, strengthen and encourage us along the way. He provided Noah with everything he needed for his extreme trip, so don't let doubt make you think that God won't do it for you, too. God wants us to take journeys that bring Him the most glory; not the ones that are most popular or most simple. Plus, it's on those tough journeys that God knows we'll cling to Him like never before (which He loves).

I encourage all of you to build your boat and sail toward God. There will be rough seas ahead as the waters rise and as people try to sink your boat, but remember who God is and that He is always with you. The journey might be long and hard, but in the end the rewards will be worth it. Be like Noah; trust that God knows the way and have the faith that He will put wind in your sails.