Through the Door on Your Knees

R.N. Hogan tells a story that while one of Noah’s sons was out, he saw a giraffe.  Coming home, at the time when the ark was being completed, he said, “Father, we have made a terrible mistake in building the ark.”  The father said, “How is that my son?”  The son said, “Why, you know that we are to take in two of every kind of beast, and I saw in the mountains some beasts with heads twenty to thirty feet high.  Now they can never get into the ark through that low door, so we will have to alter it.”  Noah said, “My son, I made that door just as God directed, and it will remain as it is.  It will be right.”  The son said, “Never, father.  This beast I saw can never get through that door.”  The father said, “Well, son, we will wait on God and see.”  When the giraffes walked up to the door, Noah and his sons watched them with keen interest.  The giraffes halted and looked—looked into the ark and looked at the howling storms and raging waters outside.  Then the leader, by degrees, lowered his head and got on his knees, and crawled in, and the other followed. 

Hogan’s parable illustrates the importance of humility. God has revealed conditions for salvation. We must believe (John 8:24), repent (Acts 17:30), confess (Matt. 10:32-33), and be baptized to be saved (Mark 16:16; 1 Pet. 3:21). After conversion, we must continue to walk in the light to enjoy the continual cleansing of Christ’s blood (1 John 1:7). These may not be the conditions we would have made if we were in God’s shoes. They may conflict with the plan we heard growing up. But if we want to go to heaven, we must obey God’s commandments (Heb. 5:9).

God’s door to salvation may seem a little low for our tastes. Only those who are willing to get on their knees will be able to enter through it and be saved. Remember, “God opposes the proud but give grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5).

Drew Kizer