Birthday Verse - Genesis

Gen 6:19 - You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.

I’m going to intermittently inject mini-devotionals using one of my “birthday verses”.  I will look at the nineteenth verse of the sixth chapter of each book of the Bible.  (Yes, my birthday is June 19). The Genesis verse in itself probably isn’t the most exciting to start my Birthday study on.  But there are some great points before and after this verse that represent a personal challenge for us.

As a background, this is in the middle of the story of Noah and the ark.  In this verse God is painting a set of directions for Noah to follow.  The unwritten inference is that Noah is about to save all creatures of the earth from the flood.

My first question, why save the ticks and the mosquitoes?  My daughter’s first question, what happened to the unicorns?

This version of the story ends with “Noah did everything just as God commanded him.”

Do we do everything as God has commanded?  For some of us, God doesn’t exist, for others, we don’t think we can hear Him.  For the rest, we’ve got doubts about our abilities, we’re controlled by other priorities, or we’re just plain lazy. 

I take this story and look at a stronger implied message.  Noah didn’t start building the ark when the rain started.  He began years before the flood when the sky was blue with nothing in the forecast.  That’s my message.  Don’t procrastinate.  If there is something that needs to be done, start now.