January 1-3, 2013 The Beginning…

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be a 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. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” Genesis 9: 12-15

     Even though I have not written in the New Year yet, I have still been fulfilling my new blogging commitment to read a little in the Bible each day with the hopes of completing the entire Bible in a year and writing about what inspires me in it along the way.  I had purchased the perfect Bible for this challenge several years ago called, “The Daily Bible.” It is a Bible put together in chronological order organized into 365 daily readings. So far, those readings have been taking me through the beginning days of the earth in the book of Genesis. It is the perfect time to read about the beginning as it is the beginning of a new year, the beginning of my latest blogging challenge to myself, and the beginning of some upcoming difficult changes for my family in general. No one knows what each new year brings, yet we all hope and pray it will be good.  The beginning of life on earth for Adam and Eve was good until the fall, then it quickly degenerated into evil so vile that God decided to destroy the earth and all the people and animals on it with a great flood. He saved only Noah, his family, and the animals God instructed Noah to bring on the ark, but after it was all over, he said what you read in the above verses.   He made a covenant still visible and tangible in our world today, so many years later, a rainbow.  It is the rainy season here on Kwajalein, and we see rainbows often. I have always looked at them with joy and even talked to my children often about what the rainbow means…it’s the story of Noah, and God’s promise to never destroy all life on earth with a flood again, but for some reason this morning, the verses struck me more profoundly than usual.  God is promising all of mankind a new beginning, and the rainbows we see in the sky after a rain are regular reminders of that. It also reminds me of the new beginning God gave us when he sent his son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins, another new beginning filled with God’s grace.  No matter what mistakes we make, bottom line is, God loves us, and he wants what’s best.  In the coming year, when you don’t know what to do or who to turn to, give it over to God. He’s the only one who can give you a new beginning, the only one who can lead you down the right path. Trust in Him, and you will find peace unlike any other in all the storms of life. There will always be people who are going to turn to evil and degenerate as the earth ages, but every one of us has a choice. God has promised us so much (including free will), and He have given us so many second chances and rainbows promising to be with us as we start over. All we have to do is accept his grace and love and show Him that there are plenty of Noahs still left in this world who want to do what’s right and believe in all the values he instilled inside of us when he created the world.  I, for one, want to start 2013 off right, with God as my focus, His grace at my side, and His rainbows reminding me of our precious covenant together for the future.