Build the Ark

As we seek to follow God, even in stewarding the land, we must be motivated by faith in his wisdom and guidance. Many people are feeling called to build 'ark' homesteads as a protection against times of judgement and difficulty. Sometimes it can be discouraging and be easy to second guess what we are doing, but we must always return to acting in faith, even when it seems foolish. The roles people are called to may be different, and not everyone is called to 'build an ark', but we must persevere in faith and faithfulness in whatever part God has given us in building his Kingdom. In this podcast episode I share some of my recent thoughts and encouragements that I hope will be a blessing. 

Transcript

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Welcome to the Redeeming the Dirt Podcast. This is Noah Sanders, and so glad that you could join today. Just gonna do a solo episode today, a little bit of an update, hopefully some encouragement for you guys. And I get a lot of feedback from people encouraging me to be a little more consistent with my podcast recording and posting. And so by God's help and as he directs, I'm gonna try to invest time in just sharing some of the things that he's put on my heart and just trying to encourage those of you who are called to or feeling called to participate in or learn how to use agriculture both to follow God in experiencing and exploring kind of return to and appreciation for the amazing way that God has set up for societies and families and communities to be able to feed themselves through proper stewardship of the land and how we get to experience more freedom through that, but also experience God and who he is as we see his creation, and then have a heart to pass on and include, pass on what we're learning, include others in what we're experiencing in our journey of gardening or homesteading or farming, hopefully be able to point them to the source and the motive for what we're doing as Christian farmers, as born-again farmers, which is the story of the gospel, that God is the amazing creator of all this beautiful creation that we see, and that we get to work as gardeners and farmers and those in agriculture, and yet we live in a broken world because people uh and Adam and Eve at the beginning rejected God's perfect plan, and yet uh and all the death, disease, and decay we see around us as a result of that. But uh, God made a way through Jesus coming and living the perfect life and uh dying the death we deserve to die, and rising from the dead, conquering death through his resurrection, and then uh giving us a hope for uh promising to come back and restore all of creation with a new heavens and a new earth that we can enjoy not just in uh you know playing harps in the clouds, but actually enjoy doing things, I believe, like farming and gardening the way it was meant to be, in a way that's uh that uh we can participate with uh Christ and have fellowship and and all sorts of amazing things for all of eternity. And today we live in a battle for the hearts of people in a broken world that um while we await the return of Jesus someday soon, so we live in this exciting time, this this we get to enjoy the the um the fruits of seeing how the heart of Jesus can begin to redeem and fix some of the problems that we face because of sin in this life, but ultimately we're just getting a foreshadowing, a little bit of a taste of the ultimate redemption that's coming one day soon. And as people see that in our lives, see the joy we can have, even in the midst of suffering, even in the midst of the challenges, and as they begin to see um God um bless uh or give us some healing in areas of our life, whether it's our health or it's stress or whatever, as we kind of return to appreciating and learning to discover the things that God says are valuable, like family and work and gratitude and um his amazing design and creation and all those things that uh that we can introduce them to the same um solution and the same one, the same way that Jesus that is helping us. And a big part of redeeming the dirt is just learning how to walk out, how to express, how to take what we say we believe as Christians and put boots on it, so that not only can we experience the effects of the gospel in a more tangible way, um, but we can display that to others in a natural and real way that's not just us telling them about it. Um, and the same principles that we apply and learn uh to do as far as stewards in our gardens, um, in terms of being humble and faithful and unselfish, apply as well as we go to approach stewardship of our relationships, our families, our finances, um, health, all those kind of things. And so uh it's exciting that agriculture can just be a launching pad and a stepping stone to being able to show the power of Jesus in all areas of life. Well, we just got back from a trip up to Wisconsin to a wedding that uh um of a brother-in-law of mine, my wife's youngest brother. It was really exciting. We actually got to go to the ark encounter on the way up there, and it was the second time I went. First time I went um actually accidentally with my son Enoch, who uh we were coming back from another trip and happened to stop by the exit where it was, and my dad uh was one of the contributors to help build the ark, so we had some free passes and and went on for just a few hours, but we wanted to go back with the whole family, so that was really exciting just to see um you know, just some of the research and um just displays on the um the way that the actual dimensions, the actual description of the arc in scripture could um have you know it it science and just the the research shows that it could have been real, like it and and I believe it obviously was real, but showing how it could have worked, how they could have fed the animals, how they easily would have been able to fit all the different kinds there. The amazing uh as as a a farmer, it was quite fun to see the different systems that they had um developed as possibilities of how Noah and his family could have, with just a small group of people, manage the feeding and the watering and the waste systems for all the animals in the ark uh and made me want to build some uh some similar systems on our farm here. So we had a great time. Encourage anybody to go see it. It's quite an amazing um timber frame structure that they they used that method to build it, and it's very uh just encouraging to see how the what the Bible says about um you know the flood and the ark are uh not just fairy tales that are made up, but when we put them to the test to see if that could have actually happened according to the specifications that the Bible says, it uh science and the testing that we have backs up that it's not only totally credible, but um interestingly, the size and shape of the ark itself compared to other flood legends around the world that really I believe are just corruptions of the original um flood, the the actual you know true flood story, that uh the dimensions God gave for the ark in the Bible, it's one of the most uh resilient and stable vessels that could have served that purpose. So, anyways, a lot of a lot of neat things there. But we uh reminded me uh uh of uh going to the ark. Our theme lately in our families, I'm always trying to go and say, okay, Lord, what are you wanting us to focus on right now? Um trying to make sure that we're living our life in response to kind of what things God's speaking to me. One of the themes that I've I heard um about a month or so ago was just kind of this idea of finish the arc. Um and I kind of took that to mean on our farm, our home, and our homestead. We've been building our house here for about 12 years now, and it takes a lot of perseverance just to keep plugging away at all the little things that need to be done to complete stuff, putting stair tread on, putting trim, putting uh fans and light fixtures in rooms that have had light bulbs for years and years, um, or uh taking the prototype systems we've had of our ramp pump or whatever and permanently installing them. Um and so just felt it's it's easy just to live life and to um focus on other things and not actually complete and finish the systems and the infrastructure and the the home that we feel like God's called us to build here. And you know, I believe that the time that we live in now is uh a really a gift from the Lord in that it's a an unprecedented um in the US here, an unprecedented time of economic prosperity that obviously is has had uh some setbacks um recently, but come in in all of history, the ability to get access to tools and technology and building materials and all that kind of stuff is still really um so amazing, and we're not guaranteed to have that uh tomorrow necessarily. And I don't want to have regrets for not finishing and doing things that are easy to do now that might not be next year, and I also want to complete things so that it kind of gives us a stepping stone, helps us as we get systems in place to be able to move on to doing the hospitality, the trainings, the um family homeschooling and home economics and all the other things that we want to do as a family are are hindered when we don't have things completed. And I'm like many of you, it's easy to start something, very hard to finish it. Um, but especially just uh the things that God's called us to do, especially related to our uniquely designed home here, which is off-grid and those kind of things, um, our our kind of sense of urgency that we feel is to finish the ark. Um, and you know it's it's an interesting thing to uh to try to listen to the Lord and and just obey, not because you figured everything out, but just because you're trying to say, I think this may be you, Lord, I don't know, but I just want to try to do the best I can with what I'm trying to hear. Um often it rearranges our priorities and we have to set priorities that um are based on things that we don't necessarily see right now or can't necessarily explain right now, um or sometimes we second guess ourselves or other people second guess us. And um I don't think that's uh, you know, in in my case, as I look at wanting to finish some of these systems, feeling an urgency to finish some of these things on our home and homestead that are easy to do now, that uh if we see economic downturn in the future, disruption would definitely be harder to do. Um that's not really that big a step of faith because it's pretty apparent to see that for anybody that pays attention to history and and economics and the direction of things, and that's why a lot of people are interested in homesteading today. But it's just uh it really was um both like thought-provoking going to the ark and also um just reading about what God called Noah in the Bible to to build this ark, uh what faith it took to step out and and undertake something like that, that I'm sure took a long, you know, it took a while to build, and was it was very expensive, and it's probably easy to say, oh well, you know, he heard from the Lord, right? And so, you know, it's it wouldn't take a whole lot of faith because he heard from the Lord, but you know, some of us some of us hear from the Lord and and we're pretty um like whether the Lord's you know, we feel like he speaks something clearly through somebody that's sharing something with us or something in his word, and something can feel very um clear at a certain point in time, um, but then often looking back, we can be like, you know, it is easy to second guess, like, did I really hear right? You know, um, it is so easy to forget. I mean, Solomon himself had God appeared to him in a dream, and he forgot God later. So it is easy, it does still take perseverance and faith. And it's uh it's interesting to just see um and be challenged by that example of Noah in the Bible. That um it's kind of summarized in in Hebrews 11 in verse 7. It says, By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear, built an ark to save his family, and by his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith. You know, the the we demonstrate our faith in God when we trust what he says more than we trust just what we can understand and see. And it doesn't mean that we want to be foolish just for the sake of being foolish, but uh we we do need to just uh understand and um embrace the kind of uh you know, you know, we want to have faith, not fear, but but true faith uh is a bit uh scary, you know, because you're stepping out into the unknown, stepping out into something you can't necessarily always explain as you're trying to follow the Lord. And uh and so it's it is challenging in this day and age to for those of us that are called to say, okay, well, I I I believe that we live in unprecedented times that are pretty amazing, but also very fragile, and uh many of us feel called to uh in prudence, um, you know, set up and um establish lifestyles that are more historically resilient, um, family-based, production-based, um uh more simple in terms of uh not as complex or entangled with complex systems. It's definitely uh a very hard and and sometimes more complex life to live a homesteading life or a self-producing life, um, but it's in light of what we feel like God's calling us that we haven't necessarily seen fully yet. And we have to continually ask ourselves, you know, why am I doing what am I what I'm doing? Am I doing um, you know, am I willing to do all these things, even if I uh am, you know, just a stepping stone or I don't see it, or you know, do I have kind of like a deal that I'm making with God and do I expect um it to look a certain way or there to be a certain timeline or whatever? And at the end of the day, we don't know. God has so much mercy and he's delayed his judgment for America, um, you know, really setting aside the economic foolishness um of the debt spending and all that kind of stuff, just the moral um failure in our country and the things that God hates that we are embracing and promoting, we deserve his judgment. Um so right now we're already living in borrowed time, and but we don't know if it if it might be another generation or whatever doesn't look like that, but we just need to, you know, st be prudent and try to be aware of the times, but also recognize that God is looking at our faithfulness, not how well we are um going to be able to um completely figure out what everything's gonna look like. And that's because he really wants us um exercising faith in the steps that we take. So for us finishing the ark, trying to prioritize getting some of those things finished and uh and working together as a family team to do that while we're still doing other things. The second thing that we felt like the Lord was telling us was to feed my sheep, which is um kind of we felt like was the idea of we need to um not only in faith be you know asking God how to prioritize our projects and what things we need to be working on uh as a family, but also out of love um continue to be serving and investing in and encouraging others um as the body of Christ um in this space and just in our community and family. So it's important you know, we kind of have this uh balance. Uh well the the the Christian life is very much one of um you know obviously following Jesus, and following Jesus looks like listening to him, looking to his example, and responding in obedience, and then uh teaching other sharing with others uh and teaching them how to obey Jesus as well. So there's kind of these we have this rhythm of intake, like investing in who we are, what we're doing, are we a disciple worth multiplying? Am I being filled with, you know, and the the am I soaking in the word? Am I um you know, being filled spiritually with teaching and encouragement and accountability and all that? But if that's all we do, then uh one friend of mine said we get spiritually fat. We've got to actually go find some ways to put it to work, or we can do something about it, we can serve people and we can give and we can um bless others, um pass along what we've learned, you know, or they're depending on our giftings, encouraging or teaching or serving. But then if we only do that, then we get you know spiritually uh you know malnourished in a sense. So we've got to have those seasons of investing in what of in our own personal walk, learning from the Lord, and then passing on and blessing others with what he's giving us. And uh and so for our family, that's you know, making sure that we're taking seasons of of doing what we're teaching other people to do, of of learning how to um you know use the Wellwater Garden Project in our own community, of learning to continuing to wrestle with um our own homestead production and um you know family and all that kind of stuff, and then also then taking time to then turn around and share with and encourage other people in doing that same thing. And um you know it's it's it's one of those things that it I just want to encourage those of you who um are maybe uh not as comfortable with you know the idea of sharing with others, of serving others. You know, we have the Wellwater Garden project that we've tried to continue work on developing, which uh is a way to use gardening to share Jesus with others, to share, you know, the skill of growing food, but also in a way that demonstrates who he is, and where it's not just a garden for ourselves, but it's a garden to be able to share with others. And it can be a bit daunting thinking, well, what do I have to share with other people? But this idea of disciple making is not that we're teaching out of expertise, but that we're teaching out of just our experience and our own humility in the journey, and God loves to use us in our weakness and in our foolishness, and if we wait till we feel like we have it all together, um then oftentimes our pride can hinder us from actually being able to be used by God. Um so making sure that we're in humility, being faithful ourselves, in our own walk with the Lord, our own farm, our own homestead, but then also uh in faith, sharing with others out of love and uh not being surprised when that sometimes feels um weak or foolish. I know that's very much um the way that real discipleship is, is it feels very humbling when we do it. You know, parenting is one of the most real discipleship experiences, and it's one of the most humbling. And when we've done discipleship bringing people into our homes or letting people see our family, that's in our own farm, they get to see the reality of the messiness and our own flaws and yet what Jesus is doing in our lives, and it's uh it's humbling, um, but also encouraging to see God encourage them through our authenticity. And uh and so that's something that just encourage y'all uh as we're learning this, um, just to pass it along, just a word of encouragement. to be faithful with with uh what God's called you to right now you know um listen to him whatever it is he's telling you to do whether it's just waiting in your homesteading or farming journey whether it's um you know uh whether it's learning or it's it's uh taking um the next steps in you know a uh a transition or whatever it is uh just go for like don't wait go boldly um and and obey in faith uh and trust and look for the opportunities that God will give you through that to um be a conduit of his love for others around you and I know he will um is you just need to be seeking you know his kingdom and all these things will be added to you but also you know lift up um the standard of Jesus in your own life and then God will draw people to himself anyways just a few thoughts um today that have been on my heart and I know it's uh been a little bit more um uh maybe just uh raw and kind of all over the place but I hope that there have been maybe some things that have been encouraging for you guys and uh hoping um next week to be able to talk a little bit about some of the current things that and challenges that we're facing in agriculture and with food and things like that. But but this week just wanted to share a little bit about what we're learning and encourage you guys in some of the same things. So just we have a couple trainings coming up in next week month and just a few weeks in October and then in November as well we have people signed up for the our five-day in-depth trainings where we train through our Wellwater Garden handbook and in foundations for farming so that the people that come can go back home grow food in a low-tech way that reflects who God is and is a proven method to increase food resiliency but also provide discipleship opportunities for people in our communities and encourage you if if that's something you want to look into pursue if you have any questions just let me know you can go to our website redeemingthedirt.com and there is a hands-on trainings link at the top click on that and uh and find your way to the information and registration pages um and if you need any help with sponsorship or anything like that let me know as well and uh we will uh we can pray about what we can work out in March April and May of 2024 hopefully we'll have some more trainings um and then same thing September October November of next year as well Lord willing so hope that everybody's doing well that you're wrapping up your season if you're in the northern hemisphere well and getting some of your fall gardens going and uh just so grateful to be part of this community so grateful for all the communications that I hear from all you guys and I'm uh not always the best at uh staying on top of replying to everyone so please forgive me for that but um uh love all of you guys and am so grateful to just be able to serve the the work that God is doing through his people in the area of the land and bringing Jesus back as the foundation of land stewardship, food production, family economies and helping the last the least and the lost hope you've enjoyed today's program again my name is Noah Sanders with Redeeming the Dirt and I just want to encourage you guys as always to be faithful to be humble and to keep redeeming the dirt. God bless