Looking Like A Fool

Looking like a Fool

Noah’s Wife

Read: Genesis 6:9-22

Pam smiled as she watched the sun disappear behind the apple trees. Friends thought she and Russell had lost their minds when they bought the acreage with a run-down farmhouse. Their friends had been sure of it when the couple quit their jobs to work on the property full-time. Sixteen years later, hard work and dreams had transformed the farmhouse into a comfortable home, and the ramshackle barn into an antique shop. U-Pick berry patches and orchards sprawled across fields where only briars once grew. Those same friends who had called them crazy now jumped at an invitation to spend a weekend in the country.

Noah’s wife knew how it felt to be ridiculed while pursuing a project that seemed foolish to everyone else. It took Noah and his sons years to build the ark and then to stock it with everything needed for the animals. In the meantime, how often did friends tell Mrs. Noah that her husband was a lunatic for building a huge boat and warning of a flood when it had never even rained on the earth before? The laughter and derision must have grown so wearisome as year after year went by, but she and her family faithfully carried out God’s instructions. Eventually, the ones who had mocked them would have jumped at the offer of a seat on the ark.

Sometimes we look foolish to others when we’re pursuing a dream. If other people don’t have the vision for what we hope to achieve, our efforts appear to be a waste of time. Even when we’re doing God’s work, there is no guarantee that our friends will understand. It takes trust in God and commitment to his will to stay on course when others are ridiculing us, but it’s always worth it. After all, we wouldn’t want others’ opinions to make us miss the boat.

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

1 Corinthians 1:18 (NKJV)