(Caution: There could be some language that might offend in the video. Really, the first minute is all you need, but consider yourself warned.)
If you haven’t seen this video before, well, you don’t spend enough time on Facebook or YouTube. It made the rounds a couple months ago, even spawning a (surprisingly well made) double rainbow song. The first time I saw it, I laughed a bit at the guy and his reaction to the rainbows. Honestly, I thought he was strung out on something to invoke a reaction that deeply to a couple of rainbows.
However, a few days ago I started thinking more about it. My personality is not to react that way to nature, but why shouldn’t I? Are we so uninspired by the simple things in life that we no longer can awe at what God did throughout creation? Nature itself is part of God’s general revelation, how He has revealed Himself to us through what He created. The fingerprints of God are all around us, we just have to look. In an increasingly technological age, have we looked recently? Have we drank in the beauty of a sunset? Have we immersed ourselves in the wind and the rain? Have we awed at the vista of a mountain range or a tree-filled valley?
Beyond the fact that many of us lack any type of enthusiasm for the natural beauty of God’s creation, this guy was excited about a rainbow. Why should we be excited about a rainbow?
And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
- Genesis 9:12-17
The rainbow is a symbol of God’s perpetual promise to us. The Hebrew for perpetual is עֹולָם (olam), which means everlasting, eternity, an unlimited duration. When God says forever, he means it. This is no hollow promise.
That these rainbows meant more to a man who may or may not know Christ saddens me. God’s intention of the rainbow is for us to look at it and remember His promise. What other things does God show us in a day do we simply ignore and turn away from? Are we hearing His still, small voice over the cacophony of noise around us, or are we content to turn it up louder and lose ourselves in things that don’t matter?
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