THE FORGE SUMMER CHALLENGE
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Rainbows, Outrage, and the Patience of God
I was in New York City this week, and the whole place was buzzing. The Knicks are in the NBA Finals, and you couldn’t walk a block without seeing orange and blue everywhere. On top of that, the World Cup just kicked off and with the Final being played right outside of the city, NYC is right in the middle of all that energy. There was a different kind of buzz in the air.
In the middle of all that, I noticed something. It’s June, which means it’s also that time of year where you usually see corporations changing their logos to rainbows and rainbow flags on every other storefront in a city like New York. This time, I counted maybe four or five. That was it.
Maybe it just got lost in everything else going on. Maybe there’s more to it. Either way, it got me thinking about how loaded this symbol has become, and how Christian men tend to respond to it.
WE ALL FEEL SOMETHING
If you’re a believer, there’s a good chance the rainbow as a symbol celebrating homosexuality produces some kind of reaction in you. Maybe it’s anger, frustration, or just straight up outrage. Maybe it’s a kind of grief, like something that used to mean one thing now means something else, and you can’t get it back. I understand that. The rainbow has meant something specific to people of faith for thousands of years, long before people started putting it on a flag.
But I want to push past that reaction for a minute, because I think there’s something underneath this whole moment that we could be missing.
Go back to Genesis 9. After the flood, God makes a promise to Noah and to every living creature:
“This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” (Genesis 9:12-16)
Notice what kind of covenant this is. Most covenants in Scripture have two sides. God makes a promise, and His people respond with obedience, faith, or some kind of participation. Not this one. Read back through the chapter and you won’t find Noah’s name attached to any condition. God doesn’t say “as long as humanity behaves” or “if people turn back to me.” He says “every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. All future generations.” That includes people who will never acknowledge Him. It includes people who will spend their whole lives running from Him.
This covenant rests entirely on God’s character, not on our response to it. The bow in the sky isn’t a reward for good behavior. It’s a declaration of who God is, even toward a world that, just one chapter earlier, He looked at and grieved over because of how far it had fallen.
Think about that. The same God who saw the full weight of human rebellion, and judged it, also bound Himself to a promise of restraint toward that same rebellious world. Both things are true. His holiness and His mercy aren’t in tension. They’re both on display every time a rainbow appears in the sky.
Now jump to 2 Peter 3. Peter is writing to believers who are being mocked for still expecting Jesus to return. The scoffers’ argument is essentially, “Things have always continued the way they are. Nothing’s changed. Where’s this judgment you keep talking about?” Peter’s answer goes back to the flood itself, the same event Genesis 9 follows. He reminds them that the world has already been judged once by water, and it will be judged again, this time by fire. Then he gets to the heart of it:
“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)
The delay isn’t God forgetting, and it isn’t God being slow. It’s God being patient, on purpose, toward people who haven’t turned to Him yet. The same chapter says that with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a day. From where we sit, it can feel like nothing is happening, like the world just keeps going the way it’s always gone. But from where God sits, every extra day is intentional. It’s mercy, extended on purpose, to people who don’t yet know they need it.
Put Genesis 9 and 2 Peter 3 together and something becomes clear. The rainbow is the sign of an unconditional covenant of restraint. Second Peter tells us why that restraint is still in effect: not because judgment isn’t coming, but because God is patiently making room for repentance before it does. We are living inside that promise and inside that patience, right now, today.
Which means every time you see a rainbow, on a flag, a storefront, a car, anywhere, it’s actually pointing to something true for every person on earth, including the people you might be tempted to feel the most frustration toward.
The door of God’s mercy is still open to them. And it’s open because God Himself has chosen to keep it open.
THE RESPONSE JESUS MODELED
In Matthew 9, Jesus looks out at the crowds following Him. Scripture says He was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
That’s the posture I think many Christians are missing. When a believer sees a rainbow flag and feels outrage first, something has gotten out of order. The first response Jesus modeled wasn’t anger at people who were far from God. It was compassion. It was a deep ache for people who were lost and didn’t know it.
What if every rainbow you saw this month became a Matthew 9 moment? Not a trigger for frustration, but a cue to feel what Jesus felt, and to pray for the people waving a symbol of God’s promise over their heads.
CONVICTION WITHOUT CONTEMPT
Here’s where I want to be careful, because compassion doesn’t mean staying quiet about what’s true or going along with the culture in the name of “tolerance.”
Love that only offers grace, without ever speaking truth, isn’t actually love. The reason the gospel is good news is because without it, the news for humanity is genuinely bad. If we only talk about grace and never talk about sin, repentance, and the call to follow Jesus, we end up offering people something that tickles their ears but without the power to save their souls.
So the calling here isn’t to pick a side between conviction and compassion. It’s to hold both at the same time. See people the way Jesus saw the crowds. And still call them toward the truth that leads to life.
This isn’t only about strangers on the street or flags on a storefront. For a lot of us, this is closer to home than that.
A sibling. A son or daughter. An aunt or uncle who’s been part of your life as far back as you can remember. Someone you love, who has walked a different path than the one you’d hoped for them or even the one God has called them to.
When it’s a stranger, it’s easy for conviction to stay theoretical. But when it’s someone whose face you know, your theology and relationships collide, and most of us don’t have a clean answer for what to do with that. Maybe there’s a person in your family that just doesn’t get talked about much anymore, not out of malice, just because nobody’s sure how to navigate it.
That’s where conviction without contempt stops being an idea and becomes something you have to actually live, with someone specific. It’s a lot easier to feel compassion for a crowd than for a person you’re related to.
THIS MONTH
This month, when you see a rainbow, whether it’s on a flag, a storefront, a car, or anywhere else, let it be a Matthew 9 moment. Stop. Don’t react. Pray for that person. Pray for the people who are lost and without true hope. Pray for an opportunity to share God’s love with them.
And if this isn’t abstract for you, if there’s someone in your own family or circle this touches, let that prayer get specific. Ask God for the kind of love that doesn’t let go of truth, and the kind of conviction that doesn’t let go of love.
Join me in this prayer:
Lord, when I see a symbol that stirs up frustration in me, remind me what it actually points to: Your mercy, still open, still being offered. Give me the heart of Jesus toward the people connected to it, compassion, not contempt. And where this isn’t abstract for me, where it touches my own family, give me wisdom, gentleness, and the courage to hold onto both truth and love. Amen.
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