Bow of Promise

[Ref. ss #11]

This week in Sunday School we sang about
THE LIGHT OF LOVE in Hymn 30.  

It mentions the BOW of PROMISE on the cloud. 
It’s about God brooding over us with His sheltering wing …….. by Mary Baker Eddy

 

"Come from that Love, divinely near,
Which chastens pride and earth-born fear,
Through God, who gave that word of might

Which swelled creation’s lay:
Let there be light, and there was light.

What chased the clouds away? 
Twas Love whose finger traced aloud
A bow of promise on the cloud."

 

After we sang the hymn the two girls went and did different things with their teacher. 

Flora listened to the story of Noah and used crayons to depict the story [you can see it in the picture].

Holly found where the story was through using The Bible Concordance. So we found it in the first book of the Bible, Genesis chapter 8. We read the first part of the account of the flood and how Noah was asked by God to build an ark to take his family and two of all the animals to start life afresh. It rained non-stop for 40 days and 40 nights and they had no way of knowing if the flood was assuaging, as there was only one window, a skylight looking up at the sky […see Genesis 6:14-16 to read Noah’s instructions of how he was to build it].

So Noah sent a raven and then a dove to see if they found anything and after the second attempt the dove came back with an olive tree’s leaf. That meant there were trees clear of the water.  

By this time they had drifted on to the side of Mt Ararat and were able to go ashore down the ramp.

The first thing Noah did was to build an alter to say thank you to God for the safety of the ark. 

Then God showed them a beautiful rainbow.

He called it "a bow of promise” to remind them that he had a covenant [an agreement] to always put divine Love first in their lives, then they would be safe.

After the story we found some Face Paints to do a face rainbow. But Holly wanted to paint her own rainbow, and put it where she could see it, on her hand. This seemed a much better idea and while she was doing it the teacher remembered that someone said that God said each of our names are engraved in God’s hand and that all important reminders are written on the palm of your hand. So we also wrote our names on the palms of our hands…..we were really having fun.  

There was a lot to think about as:

  • Light is made up of seven colours! Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.
  • In Sunday School we have a rainbow maker which throws out seven colours like a rainbow.
  • God has seven colours to His nature…. the seven synonyms: Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.
  • Music has seven notes too!   
  • Seven is really a very special number to God… He created everything in Seven Days!
 

There's a lot of lessons we can learn. We can also experience the safety Noah found from loving God in times of disaster.

But how often are we really close to God, listening for messages of how to stay safe?  

He was told to use a window looking upwards. What does “Looking up” mean?

Who else in the Bible "looked up" when things were going wrong?

NB A rainbow means promise and the next day after Sunday School these same students saw the promise in reality.

Ruth Hilary Smith