(by Lorie Codispoti)
If you ask my eight year old granddaughter what her favorite color is she will say, “rainbow.” It’s been her favorite from the time she could communicate her choice. She loves rainbows!
Do you love rainbows, or has our culture’s rebranding of this heavenly display skewed your view of them?
This unique display of creation has much to tell us about the God who designed it & placed it in the sky for us to see. It also has much to say about humanity’s past, present, & future.
I'd like to share with you a few of my discoveries.
WHAT THE RAINBOW SAYS ABOUT GOD & OUR PAST.
The first time Scripture records the appearance of a rainbow is in Genesis 9, where God made a promise & covenented with Noah that He would never again destroy the Earth by a flood.
Most ancient cultures have their own version of a worldwide flood, along with many rainbow myths. What stands out about the Genesis account is that it is not fiction. We have the historical & scientific evidence to support the chronology of the Genesis flood. Evidence that fits with what we see in both the fossil & geological records.
For Noah & his family God intended for the rainbow to be a new beginning. It was a sign of His ongoing mercy & love for mankind. We read in Lamentations that His mercies & compassion are NEW every morning. We read in 2Corinthians that, in Christ, we are NEW creations, & that all things become NEW. In Isaiah we’re told not to remember the former things because God is doing a NEW thing.
Our God is a God of new beginnings, & whenever we see a rainbow we are reminded of that truth.
WHAT THE RAINBOW SAYS ABOUT GOD & OUR PRESENT.
In school we all learned that rainbows appear when light reflects & bends through water droplets, giving us a multi-colored arc of seven colors.
Did you also learn that no two people see the same rainbow? That’s right! According to National Geographic, “Viewers on the ground can only see the light reflected by raindrops above the horizon. Because each person's horizon is a little different, no one actually sees a full rainbow from the ground. In fact, no one sees the same rainbow—each person has a different antisolar point, each person has a different horizon.”
The Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel, speaks of God’s judgement on His people for their unfaithfulness, but he also speaks of God’s promise to restore & bless them. He emphasizes God’s presence & His beauty in chapter one, where he describes what he saw in a vision: “Like the appearance of a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the brightness all around it. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.” (Vs.28)
The rainbow reminds us that our perfect & holy God is a God who judges sin, but He is also an ever present God who promises to restore & bless those who turn from their sin & worship Him alone.
WHAT THE RAINBOW SAYS ABOUT GOD & OUR FUTURE.
Before Dorothy went "over the rainbow" & was transported to the fictitious land of Oz, she imagined a place where the storms of life would be behind her & all her dreams would come true. But, what lesson did Dorothy learn at the end of the movie? The same one we need to learn about reality. That not all dreams are attained by traveling "over" the preverbal rainbow, but rather, by living well under it. When we weather the storms that God allows in our lives it can draw our hearts, as well as the hearts of others, to Himself.
When we’re finished with our assignment here, we will also testify that “there’s no place like home,” but, unlike Dorothy’s home, we’ll reside forever in a perfect world - a world where our dreams will come true because they align with the beautiful will of the King who rules & reigns there.
Jesus said that He was leaving Earth to prepare a place for us (John 14). Our God is not a wizard hiding behind a curtain. If He promises to return for us then we can trust His faithfulness to fulfill all that He has promised.
When God used the sign of a rainbow to communicate His covenant with Noah & his family its important to note that He did not say that He set “a rainbow in the cloud.” He said, “I set MY rainbow in the cloud…” (Gen.9:13) This is significant because our English bibles read “rainbow” but the Hebrew word is translated “bow,” as in a battle or war bow.
Given that insight, notice where the bow is aimed. It’s not the Earth. God aimed the battle bow toward the heavens, at Himself. The arrow formed a cross as God went to war against our sin. He poured out His wrath on His sinless Son in order to take back what was stolen.
So when we see a rainbow today - without the arrow - let it remind us that Christ took the arrow & broke its power over the sin storm that engulfed us. May the bow we see in the canvas of the sky remind us that the peace treaty has been signed with the blood of Christ.
I think my new favorite color is rainbow.
GloryUsGate.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment