Storms

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. Mark 4:39 NIV

Who hasn’t been hit by a storm in their life? Not just a single storm, but they can come in multiples and even then when we don’t want or expect them. The kind of storm that affects us can be varied, but they all hit hard.

The basic ingredients of any storm system will be wind and rain. Lots of rain. It is distressing to see families uprooted and washed out of their homes because of the flood water, caused by too much rain. Water is a strange thing. In the right amounts, it feeds the vegetation to keep the Ecosystem working and producing Oxygen while getting rid of harmful CO2. However one of the side effects of any amount of rain is mud and not so glorious mud! But always keep in mind that if not for the rain, neither would we have a rainbow.

We have a choice to make when hard times hit us. A difficult choice. Do we keep looking down to see how deep the mud is? How thick the mud is? Is it clinging to our shoes and clothes? Come to think of it, how are we ever going to get rid of the mess that mud makes on us, and our belongings? Can I suggest that instead of looking down at the mud, we look up?!

The sight of a rainbow in the sky is guaranteed to lift the spirits of the most life hardened mud watcher. But to state the obvious, we must look up to see the glory of the rainbow! You will never see a rainbow if you only look down at the mud. If you know me, you will know how much I love rainbows because the promise it stands for in God’s Word is close to my heart, and a clear answer to a loud and heart-wrenching prayer. The true rainbow is God’s covenant, and not to be confused with some contrived symbol of unrighteousness that we see flaunted at a Pride March. We can find comfort in what God says about His rainbow:

I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Genesis 9:13-15 NIV

My Rainbow

This photo encapsulates my hope for a brighter future. It was taken just two weeks after losing my wife of almost 38 years to one of life's most feared diseases. A lot of what you will read and see is directly due to the influence she had, and still has, on my life. This is a 'rainbow of hope' and a reminder that although some days are very dark and overcast, sometimes, just sometimes, a rainbow appears when you need it. Another reminder that life goes on meantime, but that we will meet up again sometime in the future. You will have gathered by now that we both had, and I still have, a faith to help me believe in a much brighter future, and a better place than this. I do not believe that we are here by an accident, or even the design of nature alone. Surely there is some arrogance in the argument that we control our own destiny totally, and that we have arrived at this point purely by evolving from a lesser state. I accept science, and the pursuit of knowledge, but sometimes think we are chasing our tails as we try to prove there is no God. There is a lot of evidence that there is a God, but no evidence that there is not! Of course the very nature of mankind is to continually try to prove something which by its own nature cannot be proven.