![\"bow\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/biblearchive.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/bow.jpg?resize=580%2C319\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Today I saw a rainbow.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve had heavy rain the last couple of days. I had stopped at a traffic light as I was driving down from Farmington into Bristol. The radio (and friends) had reported that another cell was moving slowly through Bristol. Farmington was still bright with the shining sun but right across the street everything was out of focus in a haze of rain.<\/p>\n
Every now and then, during these days of rain, there was a calm where you would look outside and see that wall of clouds blackening the sky except where you are standing.<\/p>\n
It really is a weird feeling if you happen to be aware of the conditions.<\/p>\n
You transform into this tiny, insignificant speck in danger of any of the forces all around you. The wind, if it gets strong enough. The water, if there is enough of it. The lightning, if it crashes down. \u00a0A tiny speck against that power doesn\u2019t stand a chance.<\/p>\n
But today, during one of these heavy blasts of rain and momentary pauses, the sun broke through the wall of clouds.
\n
\nIt wasn\u2019t gone. It wasn\u2019t even hiding. All the stuff happening here obscured my ability to see it, but it was always there. And as it shone through the misty haze, it\u2019s diffused light refracted \u00a0to display the colors across the dark sky.<\/p>\n
It made me think of my kids and your kids and your nephews and even us. The world isn\u2019t as dark as it could be, not yet. It\u2019s not even as openly violent as it was. We\u2019re physical softies compared to our great grandparents or even their great-grandparents. \u00a0We\u2019ve disconnected from our evil by applying labels, or creating procedures, or by conflating ideas.<\/p>\n
Even so, this current darkness obscures the light by being all around us. It makes us think that this is the way it\u2019s supposed to be. Our moral eyes get accustomed to it. So much so that fellow Chrisitans, people who should know better, defend the darkness as day. In a world that applauds wrong, happily encourages others to do likewise, and then get offended by folk pointing out the wrong it\u2019s not surprising that this is the culture so many of us adopt.<\/p>\n
Specks like me become targets for your collective lightning, strong gusts of opinion, and your deluge of pseudo-tolerance. I don\u2019t stand a chance.<\/p>\n
In all honesty, none of us stand a chance. We all stand before our maker who is stronger than any wind, fiercer than any flood, and more frightening than any blast of lightning. We stand before him because he has the right to judge. He made us.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t mind telling you this because you\u2019ve probably forgotten, but God is not only love, he\u2019s also holy.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t know what that means today. It\u2019s a church word. It doesn\u2019t only mean \u201cother\u201d though it includes that. It doesn\u2019t only mean \u201cset apart\u201d though it includes that.<\/p>\n
The Bible recalls an event where the world had gotten dark. People were exceedingly violent and proud about it. God was patient for years, then he had enough. His holiness was displayed and the world really went dark, the wind really did blast, the lightning flashed, and the waters rose.<\/p>\n
Holiness displayed looked like the judgment that people knew they deserved. They did wrong and came up with excuses with how they weren\u2019t in the wrong. And God responded by stopping them.<\/p>\n
Thing is, the fact that they had gotten that bad wasn\u2019t that God was powerless. He is holy and part of his wrath is pulling his closeness back and letting people do what they want to do. We stupidly think it\u2019s freedom, but it\u2019s willingly embracing slavery.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what those people had done. They rejected God and God rejected them. For years. And then finally the time came to clean the slate.<\/p>\n
After he was done he made a promise that he wouldn\u2019t clean the slate in that same way again. It\u2019s really easy to be afraid of the rain and thunder if it was used to display holiness so God took an atmospheric event and imbued it with meaning.<\/p>\n
A rainbow does not mean what people have made it mean. That rainbow is a promise from a person. It promises restrained judgment but it also promises that this person, God, is watching. That should encourage us but it should also keep us on our toes. Don\u2019t lose hope as the world gets darker, but don\u2019t embrace the darkness in some confused effort of trying to display love.<\/p>\n
Love doesn\u2019t applaud wrong for the sake of tolerating differences. Love actively and emotionally embraces the good for the sake of others, even when that involves exposing the wrong. Love is concerned about the outpoured wrath of God\u2014not in the future, but right now.<\/p>\n
Because God really is watching. \u00a0And God really is holy. And God really is judging right now.<\/p>\n
It can be a depressing mission when the darkness is so thick but the darkness just indicates that we have to be about the work even more faithfully and with more urgency.<\/p>\n
As I drove down the road seeing that rainbow, I didn\u2019t see many people outside. I imagine that most people didn\u2019t even realize the rain had stopped. It would soon start up again anyway. It was dark out. They were used to it and didn\u2019t notice the difference.<\/p>\n
And yet there were a handful of people out there, camera in hand, smiling as they took a picture of the rainbow. They were sensitive to the light.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a sight!\u201d said one person.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven better in the middle of all this rain.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today I saw a rainbow. We\u2019ve had heavy rain the last couple of days. I had stopped at a traffic light as I was driving down from Farmington into Bristol. The radio (and friends) had reported that another cell was moving slowly through Bristol. Farmington was still bright with the shining sun but right across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16,11,13],"tags":[840,779,392,838,841,839],"class_list":["post-3503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-eschatology","category-human","tag-genesis-9","tag-homosexuality","tag-promises","tag-rainbows","tag-romans-1","tag-wrath"],"yoast_head":"\n