A Word about Starting Over from Genesis 9:20-23

Today I want to share a word about starting over as I comment on Genesis 9:20-23. This passage tells us:

Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.  He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.  And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness. 

From both personal and professional experience, I think one of the most difficult emotional and spiritual challenges is the task of starting over. Let me explain. 

SPILT MILK:

When I was in elementary school, I was assigned a long and difficult homework project. I labored over the task all afternoon, being very careful to write clearly and legibly, because my handwriting has never been very good, and this was many years before computers. I had just finished the last sentence on a multi-page paper when I bumped over a glass of milk on the kitchen table where I was working. I literally cried over spilt milk!

I wanted to throw up my hands in defeat and crawl into bed, but my mother made me sit back down and copy the spoiled pages onto new sheets of paper. It did not take as long as I thought it would, and the next day I received a good score from my teacher. I was so glad that my mom made me buckle down and start over, but at that moment that I was staring in disbelief and dismay at the spilled milk and spoiled document, I wasn’t happy at all. I just wanted to quit! Interestingly, I was in good company when I didn’t want to start all over again. In Genesis 9, Noah got stressed out about starting over also. 

STRESS REACTION:

Noah, of course, had just saved humanity and the animal kingdom from destruction by the flood, and so he had a lot more reason to be stressed out than I was, but we can still see what was happening in his life. Before the flood and before God used him in a work of salvation, we see no indication that Noah drank or used any intoxicating substance. After the flood, with the world he knew destroyed, and with the task of rebuilding ever present in his life, “He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.” (Genesis 9:21).  

Noah tried to drink his fears, cares, and troubles away. Of course, when he sobered up the next day, his troubles were still there, and they had actually multiplied because he resorted to alcohol to self-medicate and dull his anxiety.

STARTING OVER:

Now that the COVID-19 restrictions we have been under for over a year have been reduced, our churches need to rebuild their ministries. This is much harder than starting from the beginning. It is less exciting and more stressful. And yet rebuild we must.

Although we have had to cancel many meetings and restructure many ministries in the past year, the Great Commission has not been cancelled and God has not restructured the way the Gospel works. 

People need a relationship with God through Jesus more than ever, and we need to rebuild and renew our ministries so that we can be the hands and feet of Jesus in a post-COVID-19 world. Now is not the time to give into our fears or to cater to our fatigue and inertia. When Jesus calmed the storm in the Sea of Galilee that was not the end of the work. When they arrived on the opposite shore, Jesus healed the demoniac.

CONCLUSION:

Our work awaits us. We must rebuild! Pray for our churches and pastors as we restore and reinvigorate our ministries in the weeks to come!

Every blessing, 

Dr. Otis Corbitt