Floods and Rainbows

Genesis 9:12-15

I have a cousin in Texas, and on Facebook, she had an April post of a beautiful picture she took of an Easter rainbow.  Rainbows make me think of floods.

I live in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and in June 2008, we had a flood.  The Cedar River rose, and rushed over everything in its path. A nearby park pond charged toward our neighborhood, crossed two streets, pounded our back fence, and easily pushed through debris like logs from a neighbor’s recently chopped tree.  We watched the logs float by in our side yard.  The water raced across our street and into another street.

I have a friend that experienced a flood too, and she told me she thought after Noah’s flood, there wouldn’t be any more floods.  I told her gently that God didn’t say that.  “And God said…I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth…and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

 

Joining Shovels

Galatians 6:2

Earlier this month, I occasionally watched a tree removal crew take down a large tree on a cold day.  When they cut a big section of the trunk, it crashed to the ground, making a loud THUMP that could be felt.  When the tree was in logs and wood chips, two workers used shovels to scoop the copious amounts of wood chips.  At one point, they put their shovels together and lifted a heavy lump of woodchips to a wheelbarrow.  It was a perfect picture of how beneficial working together can be.  The weight of the heavy wood chips wasn’t as bad when the workers joined shovels.

Paul tells us to “Carry each other’s burdens.”  According to dictionary.cambridge.org, two definitions of burden are:  “a heavy load that you carry” or “something difficult or unpleasant that you have to deal with or worry about.”

The two tree crew workers shared a burden.  Is there someone you know with a burden that you can join shovels with?