Perhaps too many of us have been guilty of looking for, longing for, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. What we really need to look at is the rainbow itself. God put a rainbow in the sky as a sign of His covenant with Noah. Never again would God destroy the earth with a flood. Every time it rains, all the inhabitants of earth are reminded of that promise as we observe the rainbow.
Finding the rainbow may sometimes take close observation. Sometimes we need to look more closely at what God has done for us already instead of waiting for our next request to be filled, our next prayer to be answered, our next mountain top experience to occur. God has been very, very good to us. His mercy and His grace have been extended to us far more times than we even realize. We are here, and we are in His care….no matter what the current circumstances…if we are obedient to Him. We need to accept this day as one that the Lord has made, and rejoice and be glad in it. Focus on the promise, not the problem. Look for the possibility, not the perplexity. God is good, all the time.
As Noah emerged from the ark, God gave him some instructions. He told him and his sons to be fruitful and multiply the number of humans on the earth. They were also to be in charge of all the creatures of the earth, just as Adam had been in charge. God further instructed them to care for one another, for an accounting of how they treated one another would be demanded by God. He did not want anger to lead to revengeful killing. Each individual is precious in God’s sight, for they are made in His image.
We have no right today to treat others with any less respect than we want for ourselves. None of us have been created in a higher order than other humans. God created us equal. Although He gave certain strengths to each gender that the other does not possess, He never intended that one sex would lord it over the other with an attitude of superiority. We see this attitude in the church world all the time. It does not please God. We are His children, men and women, boys and girls…not lords and lambs, masters and mice. Let us be reminded of what Apostle Paul wrote:
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:26-39)
Heirs to the promise---not only the promise God made to Abraham that God would have a people for His own, but also the promise God made to Noah: life would never again be destroyed by floodwaters, nor should life be destroyed by one another. Murder is the extreme of what begins as a lack of respect. Both are wrong in God’s sight, and we must not be found guilty of either action.
Even though God had wiped out the stench of evil from the earth by the flood, evil still existed in the hearts of men. Though Noah had been found faithful, and God protected him from death, Noah still had the capacity within himself to bring displeasure to God. He did this when he became drunk. His lack of respect for God, his Father, was reenacted as a lack of respect for Noah by his son Ham, who ridiculed his father’s drunkenness and nakedness. Because the other two sons of Noah, Shem and Japheth, tried to cover Noah’s shame, they were blessed by their father, whereas Ham was cursed. Ham became the father of the wicked nation of Canaan, the people who were constantly causing trouble among God’s people.
As God searches our hearts, may He find only that which pleases Him.
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