Building Before the Flood

Earlier today, I was thinking about what specific approach I would take for my lesson on Noah and the flood, and I decided that I want to focus on the fact that Noah built and entered the ark well before the flood came. Noah wasn't reacting to the problem; he was proactively following a warning from God.

We receive warnings sometimes, and we receive counsel frequently. If we follow those warnings and counsel, we can avoid many of the pitfalls of life and we can be prepared to face the ones we couldn't avoid. If we wait until we fall into one of those pits before we start following God's counsel, that would be like starting to build the ark only after it starts raining. Most likely, we'll be way too late to avoid missing out on some blessings that we otherwise might have had, like surviving the flood.

Thus, the wisest course of action is to follow the counsel of the Lord, whether it makes sense or not, well before we feel like we need His help. Once we need His help (and we all do, frequently), it would be great if we already proved worthy of that help by keeping His commandments rather than having to ask for blessings we know we don't deserve. We should try right now to prove worthy of the blessings we don't need yet, just like Noah did by building the ark well before the coming of the flood.