I recently read an interesting piece from a fellow Christian named Gloria Copeland called, “ABC’s of Divine Protection”. It is a story of some of the ways we can approach life’s potential for disaster and calamity. It is in her contention that if we abide, believe and confess that opens our hearts to the message of God’s divine protection. I could not agree with her more. Most of her writing was academic to the point, but she offered a whimsical phrase that inspired some thought of me.

Since I personally have found some defeat in the face of the demon of temptation, I have been trying to secure ways to skirt around the issue if it ever comes up again. In the moment that I read this article, my heart was open to her words that we need not wait until the moment of crisis to take our dependence off the world and to place it on Jesus. That if we addressed the inequity of our defeat, with His words and scriptures that we would overcome temptation the next time it surfaced again. I say that it will surface again cause of the finite way which satan leaves the Lord after the Lord withstands all of the evil one’s throes. From Mark Christ is told by the devil that he will return at the opportune time to tempt again. We just know that this time will be right as we are in our weakest vulnerability. Isn’t it encouraging knowing that Christ also is the strongest for us, in our weakness?

But in the efforts to prepare things as much as we can that Ms Copeland refers to as

“building the ark”. I think this point is well made as it is exactly what Noah was doing, on God’s instruction, building a way to save himself from the calamities the Lord was about to bring forward. I guess I never before looked at the story of Noah as one of salvation. I guess I have been thickened in this area to always view the hard side of things before, in God’s frustration; He was destroying the world as it was, with the hope of a new beginning.

But Ms Copeland is infinitely correct, when we are preparing ourselves to withstand temptation we are building ourselves the ark of protection. It may not be as physical or as tangible as an ark, but a spiritual construction project rages on inside each one of us with the goal of protection.