Yesterday, my doorbell rang again and again, without a second in between pulses, so I ran to the door, knowing who it would be.
“A rainbow! A big rainbow!” my nieces shouted, waving and laughing, “Come and see!”
When I turned the corner of my house and saw the full, horizon-to-horizon, double rainbow, I laughed, too. “That is big! Hey, you know about the first rainbow, right? Every time we see a rainbow, we want to remember the first rainbow.”
“Yeah, Noah,” one said.
“Noah!” the other shouted.
“Yes, Noah. A rainbow reminds us that God keeps His promises.”
But, as I said it, I thought of a promise or two I had read in the past, and I hadn’t seen any progress on those promises. Feeling doubt rise, I reminded myself of the verse “All God’s promises are Yes and Amen,” took a few pictures, added Yes and Amen to one, and posted it on Instagram. It wasn’t until just before I went to bed that I wondered what that oft-quoted verse actually says. I Googled “yes and amen” and found it.
Second Corinthians 1:20 is terrific. It reads, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God.” All at once, the thought gripped me: If the ‘amen’ is supposed to be spoken by me, then how can I say ‘amen’ to what He’s said when I haven’t listened what He’s said today?
I hadn’t read my Bible that day. Well, in a couple days. Okay, a couple weeks.
It is one thing to read the Bible to study for divinity school or to follow along for church; I had been doing that. But it is another thing to read the Bible in solitude and stillness in order to be fed personally. I’d been too busy lately.
Without delay, I opened my One-Year-Bible to March 15, that day’s date. I did not try to play catch up, rewinding all the way back to the place my sad little bookmark held. I never go back and try to catch up; I just open up to that day. In the assigned reading, I came face to face with Numbers 23:19:
“God is not a man, so he does not lie.
He is not human, so he does not change his mind.
Has he ever spoken and failed to act?
Has he ever promised and not carried it through?”
Amen!!
I laughed as loud as I had when I’d seen the rainbow. What are the chances that on the same day I’d questioned God’s promises, standing under a rainbow that was wider and thicker than any I’d ever seen, I would then stumble upon a verse to remind me that God never, ever, ever fails to fulfill a promise He has spoken? And I had almost missed it. I had almost gone to bed without reading again. What a loss that would have been.
Hear this: God has a new and relevant message in His Word for us every day. We really can’t afford to miss a single one of them.
