What kind of Arks are we building?

 Shortly after we bought our first house, a young woman came one evening to sell us insurance.  When she asked my husband what kind of work he did, he replied, "I'm an archivist."  There was a long pause, and then she said, "What kind of arks do you build, Mr. Nolan?"

I've always enjoyed telling this story, but now that I've read a bit of Jordan Peterson, I have come to realize that her question is a very serious one.  Peterson points out that there is a reason these stories from Genesis have endured through all cultures for 4000 years, more or less.  Regarding the story of Noah's Ark, he comments that in a world of chaos, we are all building arks -- places of refuge -- for our families.

Recently, a woman in her sixties who is raising her six nephews and nieces posed this question:  what are we to do in the face of the evil and discord all around us?  Her "children" are being exposed to things in school that she wishes she did not have to deal with.  Indeed, the Democratic platform during the last election proposed that transgender "education" in the public schools now begin in kindergarten, and we now have "Queens" in full drag doing story hour for young children at the local library.  Recently, one of the state legislature sessions opened with a prayer to Satan.

C. S. Lewis warned in one of his stories about raising "men without chests," that is, people who are educated only for the mind but without moral values -- or hearts that learn to love and to value others.  What is a family to do when children are exposed to values and ideals that they are not yet ready to weigh against a moral code?  

The story of Noah has much to tell us, if we take it seriously.  To begin with, Noah's very name sounds like the Hebrew word for "comfort."  His father Lamech named him Noah because "he will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed." ( Interestingly, after the Babylonian Exile, the "rebuilder" of Jerusalem was Nehemiah, whose name has the same root, sounding like "comfort" in Hebrew.)

The evil that covered the earth at that time, the evil that grieved the heart of Yahweh, was caused by the "sons of God" who married the daughters of men and thereby produced a master race called the Nephilim.  In the Old Testament, the terms "sons of God" usually refers to the angels, in this case, the fallen angels or demons.  In the face of a race of men whose "thoughts were only evil all the time," Noah "walked with God," a term that characterizes the just men of the Old Testament.  All around him, "the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence."

God's answer:  Build an ark for you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. And the creatures of the earth are not forgotten -- two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.  The man or woman of God is a safe haven even for the animals; those who have no use for God are often a threat to the animals around them, as well as to the people close to them.  Recently, the evening news carried a story about a dog that had been deliberately set on fire -- if that is not demonic behavior, I cannot imagine what might be.

Here's the point:  those who choose not to walk with God will become a curse to the earth and all that is in it because their god is themselves.  The only refuge for the just man or woman is an Ark built by God -- Jesus Christ, God with us.  We did not, do not, "walk with God," so He came to walk with us.  And His aim is to gather us together in Himself.  Where God is, there is love.  The world around us insists on dividing, opposing, scattering -- indeed one of the very names of Satan is "diabolos" -- the one who scatters.  Where there is division, God is not in it.  

We cannot keep our children isolated from the world around them, but if we ourselves continue to walk with God and listen to Him, He will "remember" us (Gen. 8:1) in the day of disaster and provide a safe place for us and for our loved ones until the disaster has passed us by (Ps. 57:2).  In fact, it might be a great starting place to read the Psalms looking for this theme:

I am in the midst of lions;
I lie among ravenous beasts--
men who teeth are spears and arrows, 
whose tongues are sharp swords....
They spread a net for my feet--
I was bowed down in distress.
They dug a pit in my path--
but they have fallen into it themselves.

Corrie TenBoom wrote a book called The Hiding Place, about her life during the German occupation of Holland and her subsequent experience in the concentration camp, where a German soldier beat her elderly sister to death.  That book was instrumental in my beginning search for such a place as she found in God.  I wanted to know how to get from where I was at the time to where she had come.   Now I know for sure that God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress! (Ps. 46:1).

In the day of disaster, we all need an Ark of one kind or another, not only for ourselves but for those we love.  And the words of Joshua seem appropriate:  Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served (in Egypt), or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living.  But as for me and my household, we will serve Yahweh (Joshua 24).