Tuesday, November 22, 2011

More Rainbows, Please

On my way home from work the other day, I saw a rainbow. I was traveling East along I-20 and there it was, a double bow. One half was on one side of the road and the other half on the other. Science tells us how they are formed, but you’ve got to read the Bible to know why they exist. The Bible tells us that God put a rainbow in the cloud as a sign of his promise that he would never destroy the earth by flood again.

Science tells us that rainbows are formed by light. There are two reflections and refraction. But when I was a kid, it was easy to think of a rainbow as an object you could find. Back then, there was a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow. I miss those rainbows.

But I like that the Bible says that God put a rainbow in the cloud. God put it in the language that we can all understand. If he were to tell us what it takes to put a rainbow in a cloud when there wasn’t one before, even our greatest scientists would seem like idiots. Sure, they know how to shine light on a water vapor and produce a rainbow, but they don’ t know how to change the nature of the Universe so that is possible.

I think we need to see more rainbows and fewer water droplets. So often, we get so focused on details that we can’t see the beauty of the things that are happening. Something bad happens today. Something good happens tomorrow. We make our plans and then we’re disappointed when they don’t happen. But to God, those are all like water droplets. If we could see through his eyes, we would see that all of those things are coming together and forming something beautiful, like a rainbow in the cloud.