God's Promises

As I have this month off with all this travel and free time, I made it an objective to read a lot, both books by Christian authors and some classic fiction books. I started the trip with a book called "The Circle Maker", a book focused on the area of prayer. I chose to start with this book because it is an area of my life I have been needing a vast overhaul in. With 4 weeks of traveling and a lot of alone time this week, I thought it would be a great way to kickstart the trip.

The book has been incredible and I'd recommend it to anyone. It discusses praying through our dreams and fears, and offering these things up to God. And doing it boldly. As a sidenote to anyone who might consider reading, I've had to be cautious not to treat is as a "God is a Genie, put the Bible in a bottle and rub it and you'll be granted 3 dreams" and rather as a chance to redefine how prayer is approached and what to pray for. Simple, right?
But in the light of praying for our dreams and fears, if you think about it, God is for us. That IS a promise of the Bible. He loves us. He does not delight in our failures. He uses our failures for his purposes, but that was never part of His original intent. You can find it time and time again through the New Testament. It might be an often cited verse, but read Jeremiah 29:11. Or how many times does God tell Israel He is bringing them to the Promised Land? It's not a clear, straight path for them, but it happened nonetheless. We each have our own personal Promised Land and God already has that scripted out for us.

In the light of these promises and so many more, the last 3 days have been filled with reminders of promises, at least one specifically. From the time I arrived in North Dakota to the morning part of my drive through Montana, there were several strong rain showers, many of them followed by rainbows, a sign of God's promise never to flood the earth again. A promise He's kept.
I'm not exactly a huge fan of rainbows, but the timing of this was just too good. These were not "I think that might be a..." rainbows, but the most vibrant rainbows I have ever seen. I'd say I saw at least 10 of these. Although I'm not too concerned with the earth being flooded on a day to day basis, I do forget the other promises sometimes. So this was like God saying, "see, I DO keep my promises." Luckily I was able to capture several of them on camera...

It's a Double

My last morning in Teddy Roosevelt NP, a very loud and long thunder woke me up at about 5 AM. I wanted to see if I was about to get stormed on (as I learned on Friday, a storm on the prairie is not something to be messed with), so I opened my tent to see this:

Sunrise from my tent, looking the opposite direction from the rainbows

These were so tangible, I was half expecting the Lucky Charms leprechaun to pop out and say "that's me lucky charms. They're magically delicious." But my logical side took hold and I realized 1) don't mess with prairie storms and 2) red sky in morning, sailor take warning. So I took down my tent in about 15 minutes and got the heck out of Dodge. I started driving for Montana by 5:45. Just as I hit the road, the rain started.

I wanted to get one last post in before heading to Glacier. It's a pretty remote place so I kinda doubt I'll be very connected. I should have a lot to say next Saturday though! Enjoy the week.