Noah . . . found favor in the sight of the Lord.
—Genesis 6:8
Fed up with human corruption, God decided to wipe out the whole rotten bunch. “Noah, however, found favor in the sight of the Lord” (Gn 6:8).
God told Noah to build a boat, which chewed up decades of his life. Then he was holed up in it for a year with inescapable family togetherness and a boatload of animal manure.
God told Moses, “[Y]ou have also found favor in my sight” (Ex 33:12).
God ordered Moses to take the fight to Pharaoh, get the Israelites out of Egypt, and lead them to the Promised Land. He spent forty years—one-third of his life—herding a million impossible-to-please whiners.
When Noah and Moses said yes to God’s plan, they were saying no to their own.
Being favored by God sometimes leads to tough assignments.
God’s providence is like Hebrew:
it can only be read backward.