Rainbow of Blessings
I read in the Balanced Living Bible Study to creatively describe the joy and wonder that God has shown us. Past tense, which means to gather instances and see where God has led us. Doing the intuitive leap that my mind seems to do often, joy and wonder was translated into one word – blessing…
I realized that God, indeed, has blessed my life with a Rainbow of Blessings. This morning I gathered them as one gathers a bouquet of fragrant flowers in a garden. From the deep faith in God that characterizes our family life back for 4 or 5 generations to the now.
First I thought about a Rainbow…the gift that God gave, and continues to give, as a reminder of his word….From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. Genesis 9:15
God’s promises are true, but in order to be assured of His promise, we must look up and look for the rainbow and see the blessings in our lives. It is not a just a scientific phenomenon as described on Wikipedia, but a promise from God. “A rainbow is an optical and meterological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
A rainbow consists of seven colors, red, orange yellow, green blue, indigo and violet, that appear in the sky. It has long been an infinite pleasure for me to see the many colors that our Creator worked with in His Creation of His universe. As I watch a rainbow, the word blessing comes again. Just as I search the skies for the Rainbow of Blessings, I walk through my day looking to see the color of those blessing and where does it match the rainbow.
The seasons abound with blessings of God’s creativity – the new green leaves and budding flowers that signal Spring, the luxuriant greens and deep colors of roses in summer and their reflection in a body of water, and the the riotous colors of fall leaves make my heart sing. Even the pristine newness of snowfall, or glistening ice that coats our world in the winter provides a blessing.
As His crowning creativity, God created man. Through man can come great reflections of God’s love and praise. In a child’s chortle of laughter and innocence, in the pure love between a young man and his maiden. In a ‘church family’ where there is concern, prayer, love, and giving. What colors abound here in the Rainbow of Blessings? Just to discover the hue of each would devour minutes and hours.
When a family obeys and worships the Creator of the Rainbow Blessings, joys grow. Just as we have to search for the rainbow when clouds hover over us and our lives. Sometimes we don’t want to look up and search the Giver of Life and we find that the blessings hide and diminish in our finite eyesight.
Death, illness, separation or hardship clouds clutter our skies. Yet, when we look to Father in Heaven, we see will see blessings that encourage us to see the Rainbow. This is not a one time looking up, but a generational need. There is a constancy and a faithfulness of God to bless those who are His children and love His Son, Jesus.
We must teach our children and our children’s children and more generations to search for the Rainbow of Blessings and the God who created each of us. When do we get the whole measure of a blessing? It is when we thank God for the little blessings and when we give back our best to Him. When one of our granddaughters, just eleven months old, reached up to me with both her arms to be picked up, I fell in love with this child. Now, almost 23 years later that love just grows. As God’s children, may we hold up our arms in love to our Father in Heaven.
There are many kinds of blessings — the blessing of parents as the children choose their mate, the blessing of parents for their children as they give them to the Lord. One of the blessings that gives us so much joy is sharing our children and grandchildren’s lives through communication. We do not live close, and treasure visits and hearing about them. Another blessing is our church family. Being able to enter traffic safely on New Hope Road, playing the keyboard without mistakes, being able to close my eyes at night – knowing my rest will not be interrupted by intruders, the first tomato from our garden in the summer and having a loving husband for 57 years. My children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. There are more, but these blessings I see reflected in the Bible.
I live in expectation of our Lord’s Second Coming. I live in expectation of the Rainbow of Blessings in our lives and search for them as I live for Him. I am aware that when the clouds gather in my life, there is a Rainbow of Blessings there, too, and I look for the blessings.
Jesus taught this in Matthew 5:3-12
“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.
“You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.
“You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.
“You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
“You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.
“You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.
“Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.