A recent request for information and assistance reminded me of an event in my past where God revealed rather plainly to me some of His ‘truth.’ I was on the west coast for a conference at Scripps and had to fly back to Washington via St Louis. As we descended over southern Missouri, the pilot warned of turbulence and the possibility of some sudden turns and banks to avoid thunderstorms. It was a pretty good flood year along the Mississippi and its tributaries, and the weather patterns over the central plains had been persistent, bringing daily rainfall for more than a week. That, of course, exacerbated the flooding.

I was trying to write as we descended and was not paying much attention. Soon, however, we broke out of the clouds and turned north to intersect the downwind leg of our approach to Lambert Field. As the “tray table” warning was sounded and I felt the first notch of flaps, I looked out to get my bearings. We were just east of the river and southeast of the city. The surrounding countryside was a mess; the flooding was so obvious. There were also signs of recent rain. As we moved up over East St Louis and were advised to look off the left wing, I was struck by the incredible sight of the Gateway Arch, and the considerably larger arch of a rainbow that rose above it offset about 30 degrees. My thoughts went immediately to Genesis 9 and the meaning of the rainbow. Here was a very visible local flood and a very visible rainbow. How is it possible that believing scientists and theologians alike so easily dismiss the global flood story of Genesis? I fully understand the meteorology and physics of rainbows, but God tells us there’s a purpose and meaning to this quite common phenomenon.

Some years later, the folks at the Jet Propulsion Lab or JPL were celebrating the pictures being returned from Mars. Because the rocks in the field of view looked as it they all tilted in more or less the same direction, it was hypothesized that there must have been a global flood on Mars.

This is where it gets a bit sticky. Here we have a planet with no visible moisture and we’re quick to jump on the idea of a global flood. But back here on earth with its very visible moisture almost everywhere, giant oceans covering much of the surface, flood legends in virtually every cultural corner of the planet’s history, and local floods and rainbows all the time, many of our best and brightest cannot accept even the possibility of a global flood. Do I detect a little baggage in the form of an agenda encroaching on our objectivity here? Just a thought…