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So here stands Noah. He’s been frustrated at the apathy of his neighbors, incensed at their sinfulness, and dumbfounded at their lack of love for God. Look around: no one else is serving God. He had his church service every week, and who came? Just his family. The world was a mess. No one was doing the right thing; perhaps he should quit trying. I mean, the world is so wicked, what difference is one good family going to do?

Then God shows up, and Noah thinks everything is going to be ok. God proceeds to confirm his worst suspicions about the state of the world, and shared His plan to destroy all of the wicked people on the earth. But Noah’s whole family will be saved. Awesome fairy tale ending, everything’s happily ever after, end of the story. Right?

Nope. So Noah is standing there, thinking that all of the other people in the world are wicked, and won’t listen to him teaching … and here God tells him to build a boat. A huge boat. God doesn’t condemn Noah for not winning his neighbors to the Lord, and He doesn’t tell him he’s not doing a good job being a Christian. Nope. He just tells him to build this boat. Why in the world, when nothing in the world is going right, would God want him to build a boat?

That’s a huge task. A distraction, perhaps, from telling his neighbors about God. I mean, he could read his Bible more if he didn’t build an ark. Or he could sing songs about God. But no. God said, build a boat.

Ok, let’s build. For 120 years. Build, and build, and build. Surely folks will listen, they’ll see faith in action and think, man, I’ve got to have what Noah has. Nope. They weren’t interested. In fact, they were having the time of their lives, while the only Godly people on the planet were breaking their backs building. a. ship.

Not building a church. Not preaching. Building a ship.

And it’s not like Noah was a professional ship builder. We don’t know what his previous job was, but I sure don’t think he had a Ph.D. in ship building. And here God tells him to build a ship. Not any old ship, a huge ship to keep his whole family and a zoo alive.

You know what the beautiful thing is? He did it. Here’s this looming task that seemed pointless, something too big to handle. And Noah just gets right to the job. He doesn’t ask God for confirmation, he doesn’t beg God for a different job, and he doesn’t sit down and feel discouraged about his ministry. He. Just. Builds. the. Ship.

You know, God’s work might not always make sense to us. It might seem like nothing’s going on, or that God’s giving us busywork. It might seem that the challenge is too great, the price to big, the mountain too high, the army too strong, the country too foreign, the sacrifice too much. It might seem pointless. No one is listening, nothing’s changing, and you might as well throw in the towel. God must think you’re a bad Christian for not leading your neighbors to the Lord; how dare you think you could take on this big challenge?

Nope. That’s not what God said. God has a huge job for each of us, something we’ll look back on in the future and find amazing that God helped us to do it. But that will never happen if we don’t take the first step, say “Yes, Sir”, and step forward to duty. Like Noah did.

God’s not grading us on metrics, statistics, numbers. He’s not looking at our conversion rate, our prayer log, our Bible’s condition. He’s judging us on our heart, and what we’re doing for Him. He’s got a great big job out there for each and every one of us, and he’s waiting for us to take it on.

The world may be a mess. Your church may never have 1,000 members. Your Sunday School students might quit. But don’t give up. God’s got something greater for you. And if He tells you to build a ship, by all means, get to it. You and you only can make the difference God wants you to make in the world, and just because you don’t think what you’re doing right now is successful doesn’t mean that God doesn’t want you to take on something greater.

“For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.” 2 Chronicles 16:9

“Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not. And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.”
Acts 16:6-10

Paul was the first Christian missionary in history, and wrote 14 books of the New Testament. After he initially hated Christians, he became one of the best that ever lived. Most of us have come to understand salvation through the book of Romans, so we, too, have benefited from his ministry.

Now, what if Paul came up to you and said he was going to a new place to share the Gospel. Would you think you could trust him and assume he was correct? I mean, surely someone like him would know where the best place to go would be. Do you think you’d trust him and never thing twice about it? I think I would.

One day, Paul decided that he should go share the Gospel in Asia. This would be the part of Asia near Isræl, but that’s still cool since that means Paul wanted to come closer to where we live. But you know what? God told him to not go to Asia.

Now why in the world would God say that? Does that make sense? Do people in Asia need to hear about God? Definately! So why would God say no?

Even though God wants us to serve Him, we must do it His way. And even though He says we can ask Him whatever we want, He can still answer Yes or No. Let’s look at some reasons why God would say no to something we ask for.

1) God knows what we don’t know

We usually think we’re pretty smart, and generally feel that the things we’ve decided and planned would be good. But you know what? We can’t see the future, but God can. We might think something sounds perfect, that we’ve met the nicest friend or planned the best vacation or chosen the best career, but we don’t know how those things will really work out. But God does. His ways are higher than our ways, and He knows everything we don’t know. So when He says no, He knows what He’s talking about, and we need to trust Him with that.

2) God has a better plan for our lives

God already had something better planned for Paul, too. God had people already ready for him to reach in Macedonia places right then. Those people were wanting to hear the Gospel, and were the ideal next missionary project for Paul.

And, God still had a plan for him to go to Asia later … just not right then. So sometimes, when God says no, He’s actually just telling us to wait. It’s not the right time right now, but one day, it will be the perfect time for it. He already has another plan that is better than we could imagine, and even if that plan is to cancel our plan, or to wait, it’s the best thing for us.

3) God wants to teach us

This once was not the only time that God told Paul no. Paul had a health problem that made it hard for him to serve God. Many people think the problem was his vision, but the Bible doesn’t say. Paul wanted God to heal him, but in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9, the Bible says

“And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Now Paul was a good servant of God. Why would God not want to heal Paul? Surely he deserved God’s help, right? But more than helping Paul with the health problem, God wanted to teach Paul a lesson. This would help him be more humble, and would help him be the person that God wants him to be. It seemed like a bad thing, but God wanted it to help his life. Just like God says in Romans 8:28, He can work ALL things together for good.

So, today and everyday, we need to be willing for God to have His way in our lives. Every decision and plan we make should be led by God. Sometimes we can be headstrong and think we’re doing the right thing. We can justify all kinds of things, thinking we’re serving God. And yet, what He wants more than anything is for us to surrender our decisions to Him, and let Him guide us. What you study in school, your job, who you marry, where you live, where you serve Him … All these and more should be God’s decisions in our lives. So when we ask for something, and He says no, we should accept it, too. It may be tough, and waiting is never easy, but we must be patient and wait for God’s direction. And when that direction is to not do something, we must follow it, too.

After all, what’s the point of asking if we’re not willing to do what He says when we ask?

One of the hardest things with living overseas is coming back to America (and then going back to Thailand after being in America). It’s amazing how hard it is to get used to being in America again. Even though I’ve lived in America for, well, around half my life, it’s still surprisingly hard to get used to being back in America. It just feels odd, wrong, or something that you can’t exactly put your finger on. It’s almost like being in a dream, only you feel like you’re supposed to be part of the dream but can’t really be in it the whole way. You feel like everyone expects you to be the exact same, and yet you feel different. Only at first though; after you’re back for several weeks, everything feels normal again … mostly.

I was surprised, then, to find that my EMG4412: Organizational Behavior and Development class from Florida Tech mentioned “Reentry Shock” as one of the more difficult things about international business assignments. The chapter discussed how people feel after living in another country for so long, and how odd it can feel to be back in America. Here’s an excerp from my textbook, Organizational Behavior and Development, about what it feels like and how to deal with it:

This was one of the things we were supposed to discuss in our class discussion board this week. Most of the students were sharing what they thought it would be like to have an international assignment; for me, an international assignment would be to go to America! Here’s what I wrote about reentry shock on my class discussion board:

I can definitely attest to the fact that Reentry Shock is a real problem, though, and with any international assignment you should be careful to plan for it. My family only goes back to America every 3-4 years; we’re missionaries, and simply cannot afford to fly more than that (it’s nearly impossible to afford plane tickets that often for our whole family anyhow!). When we first get back to the US, everything seems incredibly odd. Even though we speak English and basically live a fairly standard American life at our home in Thailand, it still feels so different actually being in America. Hearing English spoken all around you, seeing so many people that are Caucasian or African rather than just Asians, the size of everything from stores and houses to servings at restaurants, and more all serves to make you almost feel as odd as if you landed on the moon. Even though I’m always terribly excited to be in the US, almost enough to want to kiss the ground when I arrive, I often feel down and moody the first week simply from all the changes. It’s hard to describe unless you’ve truly lived overseas for a lengthy period of time. Plus, jet lag is a true problem even if you’re a seasoned traveler.

The best thing is, it does get easier. After a month or so, it feels so normal being in America that it seems funny it ever felt odd, and the more times you fly, the less jet lag affects you. Of course, then you have to face it again (in reverse) when you come back to Thailand. I would personally say the best way to counter it is to simply not plan much of anything the first week or two you’re in a new country or return back to America. Take time to just sit outside and let the view sink in, walk through stores and take time to figure out what everything is again and what standard prices are, take your time at restaurants and don’t be ashamed if you sound odd or can’t think of what to say. Soon enough, you’ll feel right at home all over again.

That’s my experiences with it, anyhow. Reentry shock is definately difficult, so it’s nice to know it’s a normal thing that others experience too! It’s easy to feel that there’s something wrong with you and that you come across so wrong when you first get to America. Actually, if you’ve ever seen me the first couple weeks after I got back to America, now you’ll know why I seemed strange (if I did…)

If you’ve traveled overseas, or especially lived overseas for a long period, how did you feel when you got back to America or your home country?

“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:14

When we think of the new year, often we’re disappointed about all the things that we didn’t get to do this year. Many of us have ambitions and goals, things we planned to do that simply didn’t work out. Whether it’s to lose weight, exercise more often, do better at school, get a new job, or anything else, we make ambitious goals of things we want to get done that simply don’t happen. Sometimes it’s because we shot too high, and thought we could do more than we really could. Other times we said we would do things, and then got lazy and didn’t do them. Or something happened that made our lives change and we had no way to accomplish what we thought we would do.

Does that mean we shouldn’t make goals? Would we be better to simply to not make goals, not say what we’re going to do?
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A Traditional Tale by Leo Tolstoy – Original Story out of print

This story has always been one of my favorite Christmas stories, and is a great example of Christ’s words in Matthew 25:33 – “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

It was Christmas Eve and although it was still afternoon, lights had begun to appear in the shops and houses of the little Russian village, for the short winter day was nearly over. Excited children scurried indoors and now only muffled sounds of chatter and laughter escaped from closed shutters.

Old Papa Panov, the village shoemaker, stepped outside his shop to take one last look around. The sounds of happiness, the bright lights and the faint but delicious smells of Christmas cooking reminded him of past Christmas times when his wife had still been alive and his own children little. Now they had gone. His usually cheerful face, with the little laughter wrinkles behind the round steel spectacles, looked sad now. But he went back indoors with a firm step, put up the shutters and set a pot of coffee to heat on the charcoal stove. Then, with a sigh, he settled in his big armchair.

Papa Panov did not often read, but tonight he pulled down the big old family Bible and, slowly tracing the lines with one forefinger, he read again the Christmas story. He read how Mary and Joseph, tired by their journey to Bethlehem, found no room for them at the inn, so that Mary’s little baby was born in the cowshed.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” exclaimed Papa Panov, “if only they had come here! I would have given them my bed and I could have covered the baby with my patchwork quilt to keep him warm.”

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When you think of the Christmas story, what things stick out to you? The clouds in the sky? The population of Bethlehem? Or is it those unusual things, the things like the manger and the star, the shepherds and the angels?

Our minds get used to tuning out the ordinary. A beautiful blue sky seems amazing at the beginning of spring, but quickly becomes something we grow used to through the season and quit being surprised by. It’s the things that stick out different that we remember. Most of us easily remember what a place we went to on vacation looks like, but someone who lived there all their life might not even remember to appreciate the view. Familiarity breeds contempt, or at least complacency.

So God threw in a ton of extraordinary circumstances in Jesus’ birth to make it memorable and special. The hay, sheep, and stars were all planned by God, as was the full inn and the crowded city. God had a reason behind each of these things, to let us identify with His Son and to make sure we’d remember His birth.

The danger, then, is that the extraordinary events of that Silent Night will become ordinary to us. Let us never forget Christ’s ultimate Gift for us, and let us never lose the wonder of His birth. As we tell His story this Season, let us kindle in others the amazement we felt as we learned of His manger birth years ago. And let us never forget that He’s the reason not only for this Season, but indeed He’s the reason for every season, every moment and hour and day of our lives.

Have a Blessed Christmas celebrating the greatest gift ever … Jesus!