I am laughing as I board a plane today. When my husband purchases our airline tickets, he always chooses the exact same seats every time we travel, without fail. I don’t have to look at my ticket when I board a plane or give it to the flight attendant. I can tell her where my seat is located! Dan books it the same, every trip, every airline, every time…faithfully!
So, I am currently seated in my ‘assigned seat’. My seat belt is buckled, my carry-on luggage is stowed, and I am on my way home now from a truly amazing adventure in Africa. In a very short amount of time, we visited good friends, took in the amazement of God’s creation at a safari camp and made a trip to Victoria Falls.
Victoria Falls…I had always heard about it, but had never been. It’s one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Located on the border of two beautiful African countries, Zambia and Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls is a powerful curtain of thundering waters. It is one and a half times wider than Niagara Falls and twice its height making it the biggest curtain of water in the world. Words cannot fully express the enormity of the falls, the sound of their crash or how high the spray rises up from the place where it hits.
As the African sun shines down on the spray, all day long, without fail…there are rainbows. Everywhere you look, your eyes see the result of the sun’s beams hitting the spray as it falls and rises. The rainbows are like none I have ever seen. All I could think as I saw rainbow after rainbow was ‘God, here I am in the middle of a continent so far from my home, where people have to fly for hours and drive for more, in a remote part of the African countryside, and here You are showing me that You are faithful. All day long, God YOU ARE FAITHFUL.’
When the waters are still, all day long, He is faithful. When the waters crash, all day long, He is faithful. During the dry season when the falls are lower and during the wet season when they are full, all day long, He is faithful. The water never stops flowing at Victoria Falls. All day long, the rainbows are a constant reminder of our ever faithful God.
But deep within this wonder of the world lies another ‘wonder’. It is a hidden secret that few experience or know about until they really dig in…
When the African sun goes down, as the songs of the birds stop for the night and the sounds of the frogs take their place, a phenomenon takes place at Victoria Falls. For three nights every month, as the water falls and the spray rises that no one can see, the light of a full moon hits the falling and rising water, and in the middle of the night shines a bow of vibrant color…in the night shines a moonbow.
It’s a rainbow that you can only see…in the night.
Moonbows can be seen in a few other places in the world, but there is no other place where the moonbow is seen for three days, month after month, year after year without fail. It faithfully shines in the middle of the dark of night.
Makes me think to myself, ‘God, here I am in the middle of the dark of night, in a place so remote I could never have gotten here on my own, and you once again are showing me without fail, that even in the dark of night, God, YOU ARE FAITHFUL..’
When the waters are still, all night long, He is faithful. When the waters crash, all night long, He is faithful. During the dry season when the falls are not as full and during the wet season when they are abundant, all night long, He is faithful. The water never stops flowing at Victoria Falls, day or night, and all day and all night long, no matter how dark the night we face, the moonbow is there, a constant reminder of our ever faithful God.
Our God is always faithful. No matter how bright the day or how dark the night that we are living through right now, God never changes. The same faithful God who guided the children of Israel with fire by night and a cloud by day is the same faithful God who guides His children with the precious promises found in His Word.
One of the seven wonders has a secret wonder hidden inside. What a beautiful picture of the faithful God we love and serve, who constantly leaves us breathless in awe and wonder. We can stand in faith because our God alone is faithful.
Psalm 42:7-8 ‘Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night, a prayer to the God of my life.’