Genesis 9:8-17
My Rainbow

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you--the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you--every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."

So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth."

New International Version

God made a rainbow just for me this Tuesday on my way home from work! As I drove, I was mulling over my concerns and struggles, half-aware of the traffic around me, when my peripheral vision caught glowing reds and yellows in the sky. My concentration on my worries was broken as I examined the vibrant arc of the rainbow, and this distraction gave God the chance to prod me about leaving my worries in God's hands. I felt such joy, I practically giggled the rest of the drive home.

This doesn't sound like a proper reaction for a grown adult, a shrewd business person, and a model of responsible behavior. In fact, my reaction sounds downright childish! It has taken me a long time to develop a level of Christian maturity that recognizes just how juvenile my "Christian maturity" really is, and permits myself a child-like fascination for God's constant presence throughout my environment. For me, this fascination is one of the ways I am to live out Jesus' command to "change and become like little children" (Matthew 18:3).

Now, I know my interpretation of this rainbow "miracle" is improbable and illogical. I know the weather conditions that are required to produce sunlight refraction, and the short time windows each day in which the sun is at the proper angles to create a rainbow. When I consider that knowledge in this circumstance, I have to wonder more how my worrying happened to coincide with the right cloud cover and time of day than how the rainbow was visible at my location when I could benefit from it. I also know that this rainbow was not really "made just for me," since hundreds of my neighbors and fellow commuters would have witnessed it, and I'm safe to assume most of them calmly accepted it as a routine object of natural beauty, common for Central Florida summer afternoons. This was a perfectly normal circumstance and a mere coincidence when I apply my reasoning and my education to the situation. This was no supernatural phenomenon, no bending of the laws of physics, no vision of the hand of God shaping the sky--it was no miracle in the way any reasonable adult would assess it and any reputable dictionary would define it. I know that.

And I can also stomp my feet and tell all those reasonable adults that I don't care what they say! I can be child-like enough to say "my" rainbow was a miracle because it made my soul sing! God used that completely natural event to grab my attention and remind me of who God is and who I am to God. It is a miracle every time I can break away from my self-centered drive for control and responsible behavior, so that I can allow God to be in control of my life, even for just a few minutes on the highway. It is a wonderful, joyous event when God reminds me of the Truth my soul knows but my mind overlooks.

We often lose much of the Truth in the story of Noah and the Great Flood as our curiosity and logic find so much in that account to divert our focus. Have geologists found consistent evidence of a world-wide flood, and, if so, why don't more scientists agree in their assessment of the evidence? Could this flood have occurred much earlier than implied, could it have been a regional flood over the "known world", could it have been a supernaturally biosphere-altering flood that confuses our interpretation of the scientific evidence? What about the curious descriptions of strange beings on the earth and unusual weather conditions before the flood? How did the ark carry all those animals? How did plant life survive the flood? Where did all the water come from, and where did it go? Those may be valid, and even valuable questions, but I choose to set them aside for now.

I am much more interested in the covenant between God and all living creatures, and I believe that covenant goes much further than "flood insurance." The passage in Genesis sounds very formal, and in an eternally significant way, this was God's serious, heartfelt, urgent promise and warning that God would never again destroy all creation to start over.

However, I also believe the covenant is a reminder and a sign of the bond between God and all of us in creation. In this way, it is as if our Father God took a Heavenly Garden Hose, sprayed it in the sky, and called to His children, "Look what I can do! See all the colors? When you play with your garden hose in the sunlight, and when you see the rain make a rainbow like this, remember Me, and remember that I love you." We would be foolish to assume God only uses rainbows for reminders! "When you feel a warm beam from My sun warm your skin, remember I love you." "When you hear chirping insects at dusk..." "When you smell the honeysuckle blooms..." "When you hear the leaves crunch under your shoes..." "When you feel cold breezes tweaking your ears..."

What specific observation can at times remind you of God's love for you? Can God distract you from yourself by a sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell? Are you willing to be child-like enough to let God fascinate and awe you by "normal" evidences of God's love?

Sometimes a light surprises
the Christian while he sings;
it is the Lord who rises
with healing in his wings:
when comforts are declining,
he grants the soul again
a season of clear shining,
to cheer it after rain.

-- William Cowper, 1779