Noah, the Non-Conformist

"And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord."

Noah was a non-conformist. Think of it--out of the hundreds of thousands of people on the earth at the time, God found only one righteous man. I may not be a man, but God calls me to be such a person as Noah was. To be a righteous woman who refuses to give in to the pressures of society, a woman for my times, rather than of my times. To be a woman that will stand alone for my standards and convictions and boldly proclaim truth. A woman that God sees, and witholds from destroying the earth because I find grace in His sight.

How far I fall short of this description! How often I settle for mediocrity, the good rather than the best. I seek my own way and will before seeking the sovereign will of my Lord, only to find my method inadequate and lacking. My prayer life, devotions, family relationships, and Scripture meditation suffer severly from inconsistency and neglect, and I drift away from the solid foundation of God's promises.

What is the solution? How do I become a dynamic individual for the cause of Christ? What does it take to become a "Noah"? I don't have all the answers, and I am no theologian, but I do know that my righteousness does not come from anything I do, but is imparted to me from Jesus Christ. I am redeemed through His shed blood, and now share in His victory over sin. No matter how often I fail, He looks at me and sees me as righteous; in faith I know that I find "grace in His sight." If I were the only human on this planet, He still would have died on the cross. It is as I "fail forward" that He molds me into the woman He desires me to become, preparing me for good works.