Rainbows – The Arrow Preacher

Rainbows

Genesis 9:13-14 “13 I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. 14 It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud;”

I’ve always thought rainbows were beautiful, but not till I started reading Genesis did I realized they were mentioned very early in scripture. Now we know that science can explain what a rainbow is, light refracting through raindrops, but at this point in Scripture Noah and his family are just leaving the Ark after the flood. As this represents the covenant between God and mankind, I also look at it another way. It doesn’t always happen of course, but usually a rainbow signifies the end of the storm. Even in the movie the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy wishes she could go to a magical place, over the rainbow. We sometimes think of rainbows as somehow magical, of beautiful happenings in nature that are quite the spectacle to see.

No matter how we look at a rainbow, they bring joy, or happiness, even if it’s just the spectacle of them being in the sky. Rainbows are a reminder of Gods love and grace for us. No matter how bad the storm was, if we look to the sky and see a bright rainbow we know the storm is over. While the rainbow is a symbol of the covenant with man to never again flood the whole of the earth, we are lucky enough to have a new covenant with God. After the fall from Eden, mankind could not be in the presence of God. We were no longer pure, but worst then a dirty diaper before our Lord. God set forth a plan that would take hundreds of years. When we think God moves too slowly for us, we truly don’t realize how God works. God doesn’t play the short game, and while on occasion he may answer our prayers in the here and now, more often then not God is working things out for the future.

God spent 400 years in silence between the Old and New Testament. In that time there were moving pieces on the board, and God is patient while we are not. We are a people of wanting change right now. We want fast food prayers, you order, God delivers. But that doesn’t work and God just laughs at our foolishness. When I think back at Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, she was dreaming of being anywhere other then on the farm. While things on the farm weren’t perfect, she was trying to escape her woes instead of putting forth the effort to fix them. We do the same thing in many different ways. In the last year, I have been a part of a social app and during my time there I have found a new escape I hadn’t really considered, on line roll playing. These roll playing conversations often consume someone’s life. There is no desire to talk to the person you’re roll playing with about real life, it’s always just the fantasy world. This is a person’s ‘over the rainbow’. So many people today find escape in drugs, or alcohol, on line roll playing, or video games. Addictions of all kinds have popped up on this planet all because fiction for many is better then reality. It’s a sad state of affairs we find our selves in when we no longer want to face any problems but instead turn to means to deaden the internal pain, dull our minds, and kick the can down the road for yet another day.

Sadly it isn’t just reality people are hiding from, it’s all negative feelings or emotions. We’ve become a society that at the first sign of trouble, or the first time someone’s brings up negative emotions, or ‘vibes’ as it’s called today, people run away. I have watched several people personally leave our ‘acquaintanceship’ because I had a bad day and wanted to talk about it. People only want to hear positive things; they don’t want to be bothered with reality. So long as life is rainbows and puppies they are happy, and anyone who threatens that is expendable. Because of this people no longer build relationships, they build acquaintances, and barely that. In the last 7 years I have been to several weddings, and I’m sad to say that all but two have already ended in divorce. During the wedding the rainbow seemed so bright and vibrant, and sometime over the course of their incredibly short marriages, that rainbow became gray and disappeared. It’s sad to think about how many people end their marriages these days. While I don’t know all the details of their divorces, those details are irrelevant. People have stopped living their lives in the way God says we should live, and we have stopped putting God first in our marriages. Sadly those kinds of relationships are about self, and not about the other person. When we ask what’s in it for me, or how does this make me feel, and we no longer ask ourselves what we can do for our spouse, we will grow in resentment, and heartache. We cannot continue wishing for what’s over the rainbow. We must face reality and live according to God’s will for us.

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I’m not saying you can’t dream, but especially when it comes to relationships, focus on what those relationships are really supposed to be. Find some happiness in your life the way it is and make that flourish. No the grass is not always greener on the other side. Stop taking for granted the gifts you have right now. Embrace them, and enjoy them. You don’t want your life to become stagnant though, so balance tomorrow and today. Enjoy your sunshine, enjoy the rainbow, and remember God’s always with us each and every day. Give thanks for another sunrise, and the many, many blessings we have. Hope in Jesus Christ came slower then the Jews wanted, but it wasn’t their timetable, it’s God’s. Trust in God, and focus on what you can change, and pray for the things you can’t.

Sweet Godly Accidents

It’s interesting how a mistake, an accident can be a great and wonderful gift from God. The other day when I was building a Lego house I was completing the very fragile roof I accidently pushed too hard and a section of the roof collapsed. Obviously this is a frustration because once the collapse occurred the only way to fix it was to take the entire roof down and start over. While there was a gaping whole in the roof of the house all I could say at the time was oops. Within a moment I had decided to use it to my advantage. Over the last several months I had made note of bad choices surrounding my life, some were my choices, and others were that of others. The point is sometimes out of an accident a blessing or a path is waiting for you. We may not always see the reason for accidents, but sometimes it’s to teach us a valuable lesson, or alter the path we are on. Matthew 10:8 “⁸Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead,^[^a^] cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” We receive gifts and we don’t always acknowledge what we’ve received as a gift. While I wrote the blog post ‘OOPS’ I found myself considering the consequences of the good and bad things I had witnessed the last 11 months. As my world around me crumbled into a million or more pieces the why is this happening, the what am I supposed to learn and do now, the when will I begin to feel better in my life, questions that wouldn’t come, but faith would continue to guide me like a lighthouse in the bitterness of the worst storm I’d ever see in my life.

It’s amazing how some actions may seem like accidents, or even things that are accidents, but either way, God is working to pull you through no matter what the case may be. In all of our mistakes, in all of our suffering, there’s still lessons to be had, blessings to be seen. Romans 12:6-8 “6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; 7 or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; 8 he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” In each of our God given gifts we must find the will to survive. We must always find a way out of the fire. The gifts we’ve been given no matter what they are can be used to glorify God. We must learn to use our gifts to the best of our ability and in using our gifts help to lift up those around us. Every accident is a chance to glorify God. Every mishap is a chance to show what God is in our lives. One way to look at an accident is a Godly opportunity. No matter the tragedy, no matter the accident we have an opportunity, an obligation to rise above and show what being a Christian is all about. Always look to the sky, and know that God is looking out over you. In every mistake or accident the chance to fly above the clouds is always there. You may feel like you’re in the muck but when you behave has a true Godly Christian, you can fly, soar through the clouds because if God is for you, then who can be against you?

When we forsake our faith, when we turn our backs on God we can be sure that the blessings in our life are only a snowballs chance. We never know what our future holds and what blessings may be just beyond the river bend. We may never know the joys that are waiting for us, and in that, we can have faith, that the faithful will be blessed. It’s easy to look back on a situation and have our perspective skewed, tainted by the world, the attacks by the Devil. When we are suffering the pain can blind us from the truth, and from our path. The struggle is to remain focused on God, focused on God’s plan for us, which is of grace not despair. Trials and pain will happen, but if we trust, truly trust in the Lord, there may be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Just remember, without the storm, there is no rainbow and with no rainbow, no pot of gold. Endure the storm, to find your pot of gold.