"So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out." (Gen 6:14, NLT) The scripture above is a summary of what God told Noah when He wanted to destroy the world with a flood. It was the apocalypse - the end of the world. The worst was about to happen, and God was giving Noah the formula for surviving it. Whether it is the end of the world, the loss of your capital, the death of a loved one, sudden rise in fuel price etc. Sometimes the outcome does not match our expectations and the wrong things just happen. The solution to surviving this unpopular events or outcomes is to anticipate them and prepare for them. I think Noah beat the record in preparation. The flood and its after effect lasted not more than 170 days; but Noah took one hundred years preparing for the flood. How much time do you devote to preparation? The longer you prepare, the easier it is for you to anticipate all the loopholes and cover them. Kay Redfield Jamison said, "There is always a part of my mind that is preparing for the worst, and another part of my mind that believes if I prepare enough for it, the worst won’t happen"! And I am inclined to believe her..
The same formula that God gave to Noah still works today. If you want to survive the worst, be prepared for it. Simply put, build an ark! Somethings in life are inevitable: hunger, death and bad government. How prepared are you for life in 2018? I know you have prayed for the best; and God has answered those prayers. But remember that before you can arrive at the still waters and lie down in green pastures you will have to walk through the valleys of the shadow of death! So be prepared. What do you think would have happened if Noah refused to build the ark, and decided to pray against the flood instead? Sometimes we make a lot of mistake by assuming that praying is the only way to survive in life, but it isn't. Our prayers must be backed with actions in order to be effective.
An ark is a the safest place to be in when a flood comes. So building an ark is the best preparation for a flood. If you can identify the best solution for a problem, and provide that solution even before the problem arrives, you would have made the best preparation. When footballers practice, they are trained to play in the rain, in the sun. Sometimes the coach will train them on how to play penalties just in case they couldn't win the match in normal time. Most speakers don't anticipate a bad sound system, an unwilling audience - and so they don't prepare for it. Cover all possible angles in preparation and you will be happy you did. "Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it " Alan Armstrong