Topic: Notifications That Change Everything – Daily Devotional by Proverbs 31 Ministries 16 March 2021

Notifications That Change Everything

“Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.” Genesis 6:9b-c (ESV)

Think back to one of those moments when your life dinged with a notification that caused you to stop and ask, Do I trust God with this?

Maybe it was a text from a friend asking for prayer, a panic-inducing headline from the news or even an opportunity to do something you had never done before.

All of us have had a moment where one notification had the potential to change everything in our lives.

I can think of several defining notifications I’ve received in the last few years. A text from my dad that read: Come quick, your mom is dying. A news headline that indicated a pandemic was about to change life as I knew it. An email letting me know I was no longer needed for something I loved being a part of.

Sometimes, hard-to-believe notifications leave doubt lingering in our souls. And doubt, left undealt with, can become incredibly destructive to our faith.

There’s a man in Scripture who received a significant “notification” that was surely hard to believe. His name? Noah. But this notification came straight from God.

Noah was a husband, a father, a farmer and a preacher of righteousness. And one day, a conversation with God changed everything in his life. God told Noah there was a destructive flood coming, and Noah was to build an ark to take him, his family and many creatures on board to save. (Genesis 6)

Think about all the unbelievable factors of this notification: The earth had never seen a destructive flood like this, Noah wasn’t an ark-builder and the logistics of getting all those animals onboard.

How was Noah able to rise above the doubt this notification could have brought him?

I believe we see the answer to this question tucked into our main verse today: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9b-c). What does this mean? It doesn’t mean he was perfect, but it means he was in process with God.

A word that describes what it means to become righteous is “sanctification.” Meaning, the stepping away from the things that keep us from moving toward God. It’s allowing our steps to become in step with His. We also see in this verse that Noah made a decision: to walk with God.

This was not an “out for a few laps around the park” kind of walk. It was a place in Noah’s soul where, through a daily decision to show up before God, he became settled on who God was to him.

There was a destination in Noah’s life, and he would only reach it by walking with God.

You also have a God-given destination in your life. And all day long, doubt is in your head trying to detour you. Doubt sends you notifications that fill your mind with thoughts like: You can’t do this; you heard from God wrong; it’s too hard; give up; this is impossible.

I’m sure Noah had similar words lingering in his thoughts.

But if you decide to keep walking, God will keep working. It might feel like the enemy is following your footsteps and trying to trip you every chance he gets. Yet when you walk with God, you are always one step ahead of any scheme to take you down.

So the next time a life-changing notification comes, and it will, make the decision to walk closer to God.

Like Noah’s notification, it might not all make sense in one moment, but after a lifetime of walking with God, we will also see God’s faithfulness. We can decide today: There’s a better way; I’m walking with God.

Thank You, God, that we can hear Your voice and listen. Help us to walk closer to You today. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

TRUTH FOR TODAY

2 Corinthians 5:7, “… for we walk by faith, not by sight.” (ESV)

2 Corinthians 4:18, “… as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (ESV)