After the flood, in Genesis 9:1, God tells Noah and his sons to “be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth,” and at this time everyone spoke the same language.  The people of the earth moved to a place called Shinar and decided to build a tower so high that it reached heaven. The idea was that they wanted to be “above” God in every sense, so they began to build. The Godhead saw what was happening and decided to stop them by confusing their language so that they could not communicate. Once they realised they could not talk to each other, they began to move away from each other and the result was that they became scattered over the whole earth – God’s design for man from the beginning.

 The word confused in Hebrew is ‘Babel’, so they called the place they had gathered in, Babel.

The rest of this chapter tells us the genealogy of Shem through to Abram. Notice how the ages of the men mentioned slowly get less and less, as the world again becomes filled with sin.

The genealogy of chapter 11:10 to the end leads us from the time of Shem, after the flood, right up to Abram’s call.

Father God has a plan for each of us individually, as He had for the people mentioned in our reading today. He had made the world to be filled with people, but the people did not want to spread out, they wanted to cling together. Whatever their reason for this, fear, power, vanity…, they were not doing what Father God had purposed for their lives.

We too, sometimes do things out of fear, vanity, want of power and a whole host of other reasons, but if we are not fulfilling the purpose for which we were made, God may have to step in and confuse our plans.

Do you ever have a day when things just don’t seem to be falling into place?

It may be that you are just having one of those days, but it might be that you just need to ask Father God if you have the direction of your life on the right course.

***

Prayer: Father God, please guide me today in Your way for my life, Amen.