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What Will You Do When God Asks the Absurd of You?

When we look at the Bible and the stories of what God asked people to do, it might be easy to think, “Say what, God? Did you really say that? Did I hear you correctly? Is this really what you want me to do? I mean, this is unprecedented, it's foolish, it's absurd!”

What is our response when God asks the unprecedented of us? Look at Noah. His story is just full of absurdity, unprecedentedness.

We find his story in Genesis chapters 6 to 9. You may want to read it now to refresh you memory.

Now, I don't know about you, but if God said to me what He said to Noah, I would say, “Say what? What are you talking about? I mean, this is unprecedented, isn't it?”

First of all, yes, Noah conceded that people were corrupt, so that part is not so shocking, but what God says next is. “I'm going to wipe out all the people.”

You're going to wipe out all the people? I mean, is this a great plan? And a flood of the whole earth? What does that mean? Noah has no clue how big the earth is!

Noah is in an arid place, told to build a boat like he has never seen, out in a humongous field where everybody's going to see it. They're going to make fun of him, aren't they? And then if this is not all enough, God says, “I want you to bring two of every kind of animal, living creature on the boat.” How is he going to do this?

So we ask ourselves, How am I going to respond when God asks the absurd of me? Well, the first thing we have to do is we have to believe.

If we're honest with ourselves, that takes time, doesn't it? If I were Noah, I would have said, “I don't think I heard him correctly. Maybe I had too much hot fudge before I went to bed and I had some wild, crazy dream or something.”

But the first thing he needs to do is believe what God said to him.

I struggled with my call for a long time. I didn't say yes for a long time. As a matter of fact, I was more like Jonah than Noah, and I ran away.

The beauty of God is He gives us grace.

Hear the full message here:

- Rev. Lisa Morrison serves as an adjunct professor at NBC. 

Published: 11/07/2025

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