There is no Plan B with God
Does God ever have to resort to Plan B? Or is God big enough and powerful enough to work everything into His Plan A?
In today’s Bible reading*, we read about how much worse things got after the Fall. (see yesterday’s devotional) In fact, things continued to get so bad that God regretted having created everything. (Genesis 6:6) Even the good command of God to fill the earth and subdue it (Genesis 1:28) was twisted into some kind of perversion. But God had a plan. And God didn’t have to revert to Plan B. Everything was according to His Plan A.
Genesis 6 didn’t surprise God any more than Genesis 3 did. God knew all along what was going to happen and how His plans would continue. (Job 42:2) Why? Because He’s God! (Isaiah 55:8)
In the midst of the sinful chaos of Genesis 6:5-7, God chose to save Noah.
Noah, however, found favor with the Lord. (Genesis 6:8 CSB)
Noah was a righteous, blameless man (compared to everyone else). Moses (the writer of Genesis) also notes that Moses walked with God. Now, this isn’t the first time that we read that someone walked with God. Genesis 3:8-9 implies that the man and the woman used to walk with God in the garden before The Fall. And Moses tells us that Enoch walked with God and God took him to heaven without dying. (Genesis 5:24)
God chooses Noah and decides He’s going to start over with Noah and his family. Moses is very brief in his description of Noah. No law-keeping. No sacrifices. No “acts of righteousness”. Moses simply says that Noah was righteous and blameless. And Noah walked with God.
God warns Noah to build a boat because God was going to bring a flood. (Genesis 6:17) I’m sure that his neighbors asked what he was doing. When Noah said that it would rain, the people must have scoffed. They had never seen rain before! God had provided an in-ground irrigation system. (Genesis 2:5-6) There’s no mention of rain until Genesis 7:4.
Application
God chose Noah. Noah didn’t have to beg God to use him. He was just doing what he knew to do: be righteous. Somehow Noah knew about God through his ancestors. Somehow the story of his distant relatives, the first man and woman survived history. Somehow the story of God’s righteousness — and God’s grace and mercy — was passed along from generation to generation. But everyone else rejected God’s ways and redemptive plan. Everyone but Noah.
Even if everyone around you rejects the ways and redemptive plan of God, where do you stand? Have you accepted God’s ways? Have you accepted God’s plan of redemption through Jesus Christ?
God doesn’t have a Plan B.
Everything with God is according to Plan A.
This devotional was originally published on January 4, 2021.
* Chapters covered in today’s reading:
Genesis 6
Genesis 7