“Faith and fear both fight for you to believe in something you cannot see. Choose your battles wisely. Build your life even wiser. Make decisions that lead to obedience.”- Nicki Koziarz
“If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”- Dolly Parton
In Chapter 15 (“The God We Want”), the concluding chapter of Flooded, Nicki Koziarz exhorts that, in the midst of your unknown, loss, and grief, there’s a story being written. Therefore, your hard days truly mean something. And you’ll come out different on the other side of every hard, impossible thing. Furthermore, you get to decide how you see your God and live out your faith. You choose how you rise above.
Yet, Nicki wants to nudge you a little. Do you still hold on to the past, which stops you from looking ahead? Or do you intensely long for the past, so that you fail to see something better just ahead?
Years after leaving the ark, Noah’s descendants built the Tower of Babel. Out of fear. Because they failed to heed God’s command to spread out over the earth (Genesis 9:7). As a result, Noah’s descendants wanted God their way. Above all, Nicki observes, nothing has changed:
“We want our God to be the same God who has the power to use wind to part seas and end floods. But do we want our God to be the same God who knew there would never be any power other than Jesus to cure our sin struggle?
We want your God to be the same God who spoke clearly to Noah. But do we want our God to be the same God who called Noah out of a generation to be set apart, different, against the flow of the culture?”
In conclusion, the author notes, Noah teaches all of us an important lesson on life, loss, and obedience. While we don’t get to make the plans, we do choose what our process looks like. And it’s up to each of us to keep going.
Today’s question: What Bible verses help you choose your battles wisely? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: the annotated bibliography of Flooded
