Cabin Fever on Noah's Ark

If you spend enough time with someone they will eventually get on your nerves. We all have our little irritating habits: biting nails, tapping fingers, interrupting others, eating the last chocolate chip cookie, etc. And we have all had someone bend our last nerve to the point of breaking. Sometimes people seem to just do stupid things at the worst possible time. It is then that we find ourselves in a difficult situation dealing with difficult people.

Russia has been sending cosmonauts into space to live on a huge structure with very little living space. Here in the U.S., NASA has been studying the effects of living in cramped quarters for long periods of time. The eventual goal of both nations is to build a space station that would be home to scientists and a launching port for a trip to Mars. But the concern is how well people will react toward each other and their job when they have very little space and must see the same people day in and day out.

The recent news of the full-scale replication of the Ark got me to wondering what it must have been like for Noah, his wife, and their three sons along with their wives and children. They lived on a boat for 150 days (5 months) along with a full zoo of animals. The ark was 450 feet by 75 feet by 45 feet. It was as large as one and a half football fields in length (or 45 basketball courts if you prefer basketball). It had three decks: the top or Lanai deck, which was the most plush and where the people lived; the middle or Rose deck, which was for the smaller animals; and the bottom or Club deck, which was for the larger animals—elephants, hippos, horses, cows, etc. There were seven of every kind of clean animal and 2 of every unclean animal.

After 150 days I am certain that Noah and his family were sick of each other. The smell of the animals, the confinement, the loss of everyone they knew, the uncertainty of tomorrow all weighed heavily on them. After 150 days of staying inside, with nothing outside to even look at they had “cabin fever.” But it was better than the storm and flood outside. They needed to adjust. They needed patience and tolerance, but they also needed a change.

Even Christians can get like this. We join together with a group of fellow believers to journey together in our spiritual lives and before long we get sick of other church members. We get “cabin fever.” We begin to fuss and fume over things. We may even lash out at each other.

In my life I have visited in church services in some 35 states, 5 provinces of Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, the Bahamas, and Jordan. I have friends who serve or have served in churches from California to Maine, Washington State to Florida, and roughly 20 foreign countries. While I cannot be absolutely certain about this, I am fairly sure that every church in the world has had the experience of at least one difficult person who is experiencing “Cabin Fever.”

Wendy and I have both experienced “Cabin Fever” at least two times since we have been married. One was at a church and the other was on the mission field. Looking back I know that some of the situations that we found ourselves in were a direct result of things that we did wrong. But some were the faults of others. During our moments of “Cabin Fever” all we could think about was getting out of the “cabin” and into a situation that was better. If we are not careful, we can get to feeling like a trapped animal when we experience “Cabin Fever” and the only thing we know is that we want out, no matter who gets hurt in the process.

Have you heard this saying before? “Whenever two or three are gathered together in Christ’s name, you can be assured that one of them is thinking about starting another church.” People just have a tough time getting along when things get close. Richard Broholm put it this way, “The church is a lot like Noah’s Ark—if not for the storm outside, you couldn’t stand the smell inside.”

Baptists, especially Southern Baptists, have a history of fighting. Baptists have fought over such issues as translation versus transliteration of the bible, singing and use of instruments versus no music whatsoever, the style of hats that should be allowed in church and even the color of the carpet.

Southern Baptists began as a group that split from other Baptists over personal opinions more than Biblical beliefs. Of course, the founding group felt that the issues were of vast importance at the time. Dr. H. Leon McBeth, history professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, says in his book, The Baptist Heritage that, “At least three factors led to [the formation of Southern Baptists]: disagreements on methods of organization, problems in home mission work, and the slavery controversy. While each of these played an important role, they were not of equal weight; slavery was the final and most decisive factor which led Southern Baptists to form their own convention.”

Unfortunately, the church is not the principal location for Baptist’s arguments, but rather the culmination of them. Most Baptist arguments are formulated, manifested, defended, and/or destroyed in public places such as the local café or the teacher’s lounge at school. When a husband or wife begins to discuss their family problems in public instead of with their spouse, they usually find themselves in a divorce court. We need to remember that we have no business discussing the family problems of a church with non-family members. This only hurts the image of Christ in the community. We also need to be tolerant when a family member airs a problem at church during a family conference (in committees or business meetings). But at the same time remember that some younger, less mature Christians could become disenfranchised with their new family if things become too heated.

In my own church life experience I have witnessed people arguing over the materials that were used to build a pump shed. I have heard people question the $100 cost of a piano cover to protect the new $12,000 piano or about the purchase of a new copier for the church office. I have seen a church almost split because someone nominated a woman to serve as VBS director. I have seen people leave a church because the church used microphones while they wanted things to remain like the old country church in which they grew up. When my father was a child he saw the pastor get thrown through a glass window thus ending the business meeting.

Why are we such a difficult people? Why must we inevitably begin to complain and argue about things just as God begins to move and make changes? Why is it that God’s people often act more like squabbling children than loving brothers and sisters? 

I think that we have a misconception about fighting. Most people believe that it is easier to get into a fight with someone you don’t like, an enemy of sorts. I believe that relatives fight more often. Now, I love my mother-in-law, but why else are there so many jokes about Mother-in-laws? We get close to someone, feel more freedom to share our opinions, have a stronger desire to convince them to believe as we do, and get tired of their little quirks when we are around them day after day. I believe that we fight when we reach a place in our lives where the floodgates have opened on us and we feel that we are out of space to maneuver.

Noah’s family spent 150 days together in a smelly, musty boat with no modern means for waste disposal for humans or animals, no modern ventilation, and no air-conditioning. And some people think a week’s vacation in a pop-up camper is bad. They had “Cabin Fever” big time. The bible doesn’t tell us about the day-to-day happenings on the ark, but, having witnessed families in action, we can all imagine that they had their share of family spats.

We know that Noah had a temper. Read Genesis 9:18-27 sometime and see how he cursed his grandson, Canaan, because Ham walked in on him, saw he had gotten drunk and was lying naked, and then told his brothers what he had seen. The Canaanites remained a cursed people and eventually were the very people who lead Israel astray through Baal worship.

Noah was probably very tired and irritable during these 150 days. For one thing, Noah was 600 years old before he ever entered the ark. I am only 47 and I already have many health problems. I can’t imagine how miserable I would feel at age 600. Some people age gracefully, while others seem to sour and get rotten the longer they hang on the vine. When you reach an age where your health begins to fail you have more trouble reading books with your trifocals and your social security checks do not make you feel all that secure, it is easy to become bitter. A friend of mine in the ministry once told me that he loves to work with youth, but really disliked working with senior adults. When I asked him why he replied that he understands why youth are sometimes cranky, irritable, and mean towards each other, but senior adults should be old enough to know better. The only antidote to a bitter heart is to replace it with a new heart provided by God through Jesus Christ. Placing your faith in Jesus instead of health or money will help you see life in a more beautiful way when you have no money and poor health.

There also had to have been some sibling problems on the ark. My brother and I often showed our love for each other through aggressive actions. I still have the scars to remind me of our fights. When we fought, we were serious about it. My brother has stuck a pair of scissors into my leg and even stabbed my finger with a knife. I once hit my brother upside the head with an aluminum baseball bat. Our house also showed scars of our fights: broken chairs, holes in walls, and bloodstains on carpet. I can just see Noah’s children arguing over who should mop the lion’s pen today or who had to feed the alligator’s their lunch.

The bible does not tell us this, but there at to be fights for this reason alone—there were both men and women on the same boat for some 3600 hours straight. Do you remember the popular book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus? This book was an effort to point out a fact that everyone already knew (despite what the politically correct group would have us to believe): that men and women are different. This book attempted to show how men and women could get along better by understanding each other.

I am not an expert on relationships by any means, but I think the key to understanding the opposite sex can be summarized as follows (if you will allow me these generalizations):

• Men assume that their wife will be the same person in 40 years as she was the day they married her. This is one reason why so many men leave their graying wife for a 20-year-old girlfriend. One day they awake beside someone who reminds them more of their mother-in-law than their wife.
• Women assume that they can marry the guy and then change him to be the man they really wanted to marry in the first place. This is not the same as settling for less, but, rather, the prospect of ending up with much more than they paid for.
• Men never want to change.
• Women want to change something every week, if not every day. And when they change something, they expect their husband to notice the change. My wife has talked to me about changing her hairstyle at least 20 times in the past 5 years. I have changed mine once and it lasted for about 2 weeks before I changed it back.
• Men mean what they say even if it doesn’t make sense. They also assume that everyone else does the same. For example, my father always told me to hand him that thingy in the drawer and would be upset if I didn’t know what thingy he meant.
• Women never say all that they mean. Instead they give hints, but expect that you will completely understand them. For example, they say, “Is the trash can empty?” when what they really mean is “I want you to empty the trash now.”

Let me give you a perfect example of how this all works. An evangelist once shared this story about his own marriage:

He and his wife were driving through Florida on their way back home to Missouri after a revival service. His wife, looking out her window, noticed the many fruit stands on the sides of the roads. She said, “Honey, it sure would be nice to get some oranges before we get back home.” He agreed and kept on driving. A little later she asked, “Don’t you think it would be nice to get some oranges before we get back home?” Once again he agreed and kept driving. As he crossed the state line into Alabama, his wife became very upset and asked, “Why didn’t you stop at one of those fruit stands and buy some oranges? I told you that I wanted some oranges.” 

He was, of course, confused. He responded, “Honey, all that you said was that it would be nice to buy some oranges before we got home.” Her retort was, “You should have known what I meant. I wanted you to stop at one of those stands and get some Florida Oranges.” He replied, “I just figured you wanted some oranges, so I thought we could stop at the grocery store when we got home.” The result was that he had to turn around, drive back into Florida, find a fruit stand, and buy some oranges.

For weeks after that sermon, Wendy’s mother would translate to me what Wendy really meant when she said something such as: “I would like to see this movie sometime”. I learned that she really meant: “I want to go see this movie tonight. You need to get home from work on time, get the tickets on your way home, help me find a baby sitter, and plan to eat out after the movie.” I am actually very blessed. Wendy and I rarely fight. When we do fight it is usually over music. That’s what happens when 2 people with their master’s degrees in music get married. Our biggest fight during our marriage has been over how the melody to the song “O Pizza Hut” went. And it turned out that we were both right since there are several versions of that song.

God has called all Christians His sons and daughters. We are all family. And many churches experience spats. I am certain that many of you have seen an ill-tempered Noah in your time who has cursed the next generation of the church with no regard to his own sins. I know that we have all seen fights between brothers and sisters in Christ. Sometimes they leave ugly scars or even stains on the church carpet. And many churches today still experience fights caused when the men and women of the church fail to understand each other.

There are three different types of relatives that can really cause damage to a church: Judgmental People, Second-Guessers, and Gotcha People. The very nature of most every Christian is to be judgmental. We have judged ourselves and found that we are sinful, and, therefore, can never enter heaven without the forgiveness offered through Jesus Christ. The problem arises when we begin to judge others or others begin to judge us. The worst form of a judgmental person is one who feels that they are speaking for God when they criticize others. Ministers must be very careful in this area. When a congregation feels that a minister of their church is being judgmental, the result is usually death to that church.

Second-Guessers can be very disruptive and frustrating to everyone. Consider this scenario: After several days in the ark, Noah’s family approaches him. Mrs. Noah says, “Honey, we are all just concerned that this may not be the right thing to do. Are you sure we’re doing the right thing? After all, our friends and other relatives are outside.” Noah responds, “No, I’m not sure, but based on the information that I have, we are doing the right thing. God has spoken and I have listened.”

In a modern context this might be equivalent to a minister or committee recommending that the church relocate to another part of the city and build a new building. They believe that this is what God wants for the church. It is financially risky, they have never done this before and there is some concern, but they are excited about what God is doing and will be doing through this new ministry. They present all the information to the church, and then somebody raises their hand and simply asks, “Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” Immediately the energy and excitement is gone. Sometimes the Second-Guesser is right, making it even more infuriating to those who were so excited about it. Right or wrong, Second-Guessers will be present. It is possible that we have all been a Second-Guesser at sometime. As a family, we need to learn how to deal with each other’s concerns, doubts, and fears without killing the visions that God has given to us.

Gotcha People, on the other hand, are never in the right. There is no one more difficult to live with then a frustrated and vindictive person who is just waiting for the right moment to strike. In virtually every church in which I have served, the pastor, another staff member, a previous staff member, or even church members themselves have felt it necessary to warn me about somebody who fits this category. They say, “If you want to survive in this church, you had better learn how to deal with so-and-so” or “This is the person with all the real power in the church” or “Never trust this man because he will stab in you the back.”

Many Gotcha People have somehow gotten their feelings hurt and may wait for years to get even. Sadly they often do not even realize that they are the vindictive type because the person they lash out at, in their mind, deserves it. Gotcha People are hard to live. Unfortunately, the warnings you hear about these people are usually good advice that you should heed. But remember, Christ spent three years with Judas, loved him, and treated him as well as the other eleven disciples, even though he knew that Judas would soon betray Him.

So what do we do if we find ourselves in a family dispute? How do we deal with difficult church members? How do we love and care for family members that are judgmental, second-guess everything we do, or stab us in the back? I believe that God’s words spoken through the writings of Paul will answer these questions better then I ever could. Read Romans 12:9-21 to discover how you can handle “Cabin Fever.”