life with a full rainbow

The first full rainbow.

A couple of weeks ago the Lord laid out the perspective of life with God by placing Psalm 19 on my heart. Specifically, verse 1:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.

I read it a few times and thought, hmmm, that’s a beautiful verse.

Then the rays of God’s light shined brighter. God showed up.

I was hanging out at the marina a week later and “coincidentally,” there was a full rainbow in the sky. I didn’t put 2 and 2 together just yet. Amazingly, the very next day another perfect rainbow showed up… exactly the same place in the sky. Now that got my attention as I’ve never had that experience before. After thinking about it for a while, I felt that God was communicating with me. Shazam!!

At that point, I went back to His word…

Psalm 19 is relatively short, just 14 verses. It puts a life with God into perspective. This comes into play because the passage of scripture, in its brevity, rolls out how we live a life in God’s presence. There are 3 parts to it:

  • Recognizing the majesty and glory of God
  • A celebration of the perfection of the word of God
  • Contemplating life with God in light of our imperfections

And so I’ve been stuck on these verses…

Perspective. Yes, this is a powerful concept. It’s relevant. Perspective is everything…

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Dr. Wayne Dyer

Life here can be a hot mess when we portray an image of having it all together, when in fact, we live in a state of disarray. That’s easier than ever today with the connectedness we feel from social media. We tend to portray the good, and leave out the downside.I’m not referring to a total train wreck here…

“When a train goes through a tunnel, and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.” Corrie Ten Boom

In fact, life with God here on the third ball of wax is not intended to be perfect. We all go through it. Think of it as a call to action to be closer to Him.

Actions speak more than words. What do your actions say about your life in the presence of God and other people? Are they pointing toward Him or something else?

Interestingly, this past weekend I was on the sailboat just leaving the mooring in St. Augustine. This is an interesting place. If you’ve never been, it’s worth a stop by to see the Castillo de San Marcos, the Spanish colonial outpost and oldest masonry fort in the continental U.S., among many other points of interest.

We woke up early, well before dawn, hand breakfast and decided it was time to cast off on our offshore journey back to Jacksonville. It was going to be a full day and no need to burn any daylight.

As I was sitting on the deck and enjoying the serenity of sunrise, the rainbow came to mind again. Why was this so persistent? I said a prayer, thanking God for always being there and for His determined pursuit of me.

life with a partial rainbow

The third partial rainbow

Amazingly, I turned around and there He was again… Another rainbow, but this time only a portion of one.

What’s the significance of that?

Well, I had to ponder on that idea too and came to the conclusion that it relates to my verses. It leads me back to perspective again. I believe the partial rainbow ties up the passage. The first two rainbows were perfect and complete. They represent the first two parts of scripture:

  • Recognizing the majesty and glory of God
  • A celebration of the perfection of the word of God

And the third, partially complete rainbow?

  • Contemplating life with God in light of our imperfections

We’re so imperfect. Through the lens of the firmament and the blood of Jesus we have hope.

I know, crazy message. Just wanted to share that today as it’s been on my mind and in my heart lately. God works in amazing ways! We just have to keep our eyes open and pay attention 🙂