Rainbow of Promise—Eye Contact with God

Daily I am aware of God’s listening ear. I have faith and assurance that when I speak, He can and does hear me. My prayers, while not always audibly answered are at least allowed to approach the throne of Grace—and are, scripture says, like sweet incense to my Heavenly Father. This is a source of comfort and confidence in my daily walk.

God, omniscient and omnipotent, sees and is aware of everything going on in His creation; even when He in His wisdom allows human nature to flourish and destroy.

I have faith in all these things, but it wasn’t until this Feast that I ever even considered making eye contact with my Creator.

Friday (September 27th) the brethren keeping the Feast in Perugia Italy, the capital of the region of Umbria, were traveling home from an amazing visit to Florence (which I hope to write about in another post). As we drove back to the hotel rehashing the days experiences and discussing among other things the rather dreary weather my attention was drawn to the window by the audible gasps across the aisle.

At once the entire group was “ohhing” and “ahhhing” at the spectacular and awe-inspiring sight we beheld. A vividly bright rainbow with the clearest delineation of color I have ever seen shone before us in a perfect arc, brightened further by the much fainter but still beautiful second rainbow hallowing the first.

For some time each of us clamored to get the best look possible, and endeavored to capture the sight on camera. Never before have I seen such vibrant colors in a rainbow, the orange glowed, the red burned, and for the first time in my life I saw the difference between blue and violet a rainbow. Breathtaking. Art.

After each of us had gotten, or at least attempted our pictures, the discussion turned to the significance of rainbows. The story of Noah came to mind almost instantly for all of us, and of the promise God made to mankind represented by the rainbow.

God’s faithfulness and fidelity is shown through the symbol of a rainbow. He has declared He will never again destroy the earth, and mankind, through a flood. He is true to His word.

Shelia, a lovely sister in Christ that I met this trip brought up that rainbows are especially significant to her, because of her reading of the flood story and God’s promise in Genesis 9.

Genesis 9:11-17 (emphasis mine)
11And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. 12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. 14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: 15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

Some translations of verse 16 say that God will look into the rainbow and remember His promise. Every time He sets a rainbow in the sky, He looks down into it. Shelia called our attention to the fact that God was looking down into the rainbow above us right at that very moment, at the same time we were looking up into the very same rainbow.

I never realized it before, but gazing into a rainbow is the closest human experience to making eye contact with our Lord.

Though there is no proof, my heart tells me that God gave our group the gift of that amazing rainbow on Friday to remind us that He is gazing on us, watching us, looking out for us. His presence, and the presence of His blessed Holy Spirit was felt the entire Feast, by all of us, and I don’t think it is a far stretch to believe that God gave us a special reminder that He was with us, tabernacleing among us, if you will.

Rainbows are always beautiful; always a pleasure to see, but now they will have special significance to me, as a means of a different and deep connection with my Father.