A True Life Adventure

During my husband’s 30-year career as an award-winning college professor, he was known for his rousing “true life adventures” during lectures – well-told snippets of real life that carried meaningful interpretations to enhance application of the topic at hand. 

Last night after fishing off the end of the pier, he recorded what is, as far as I know, the first “true life adventure” since his retirement.  It has nothing to do with his old curricula, but rather expresses a profound truth: there is always a choice. God gives us interpretative choices as we respond to every moment of every day. We choose to prioritize faith in Him as our Almighty God, or faith in something else that we can grasp intellectually (which means trusting our own limited perceptions).  Here it is:

There is always a choice.

On Monday, May 11, 2015, I was casting off the end of my pier.  A storm blew up and with it came high wind and a drenching downpour.  I took refuge under the canopy of the boat lift station.  When the storm passed on to the east, the late afternoon sun burst forth as the western skies cleared.  To the east was a magnificent and brilliantly colored full rainbow.   I looked at the rainbow and thought about Noah, the man of faith, and the covenant God struck with him.

And then I thought that other eyes watching this rainbow would see something different than mine.  Instead of a sign from the Most High God announcing His love for mankind, they would see science.   They would remark how cool that sight was and then maybe think about the effect of light shining through the prism created by the rain.  There would be no thanksgiving and swelling of the heart.  There would be no faith. 

Then it hit me.  God always gives us a choice.  If there were no choice, if there were but one explanation, then there could be no faith.  In His love and concern for us He gives us the chance to make many choices between His eternal view and the World’s temporal view.  By our choice we either exercise faith or not.  This opportunity to choose is His gift to us, for it is by faith that we are saved.