More than once, I’ve taken a moment to thank God that He didn’t just make a monochromatic, black-and-white world. Do colors delight you, too? Their vibrant hues probably motivated me to collect rocks, minerals, seashells and postage stamps growing up. Another love of mine has always been butterflies, iridescent beetles, and other fascinating insects that display a dynamic array of color. Colors communicate life!
When I had an apartment in college with a partial wall blocking our living quarters from the window, I filled a series of jars with water. In each one I used food coloring to tint the water a color of the rainbow and placed them atop that partial wall in the correct “ROY G BIV” order I’d learned in elementary school science. (That mnemonic stands for “Red–Orange–Yellow–Green–Blue–Indigo–Violet,” all colors that together form visible light.) The early-morning sun would shine through those translucent jars, encouraging me in bed with a burst of color as I awoke and faced each new day.
I marvel at the way God designed our eyes to perceive all these colors, but that is another subject! Colors can excite us, calm us, and inspire us. Artists have learned to employ the color wheel and complementary colors to create pleasing combinations featured in masterpiece paintings for the ages.
My artist mom had a book on painting called Making Color Sing. Do you let it sing to you, too? God put one of His earliest promises not to music, but to color! The rainbow I attempted to reproduce in my apartment goes all the way back to Noah and Genesis as a symbol of covenant. Every time we see a rainbow in the sky, we are reminded of God’s faithfulness to keep His promises.
Another notable description of color in the Bible appears later in Genesis: Joseph’s coat of many colors was a symbol of his father’s love and favor. The Old Testament foreshadowed what was to come through Jesus, who would usher us into the unimaginable privilege and favor of becoming sons and daughters of Father God by faith. In our robes of righteousness, we can revel in our Father’s love and favor every day, rain or shine.
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3:8 NIV).
A rainbow of color describes the appearance of the glory of the Lord in Ezekiel’s compelling vision (Ezekiel 1:28). That vision, combined with the Apostle John’s of a rainbow surrounding God’s throne (Revelation 4), formed the scriptural basis of the popular worship composition, “Revelation Song” by Jennie Lee Riddle.
Look around today with new eyes! Let color sing to you of the certainty of God’s promises, of your Heavenly Father’s loving favor, of the glory of His presence now and for eternity.
