God emerges from the Flood in Genesis 9 offering covenant with a beautiful picture in the sky. “When the rainbow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant” (Genesis 9:16, NRSV). The God whose heart was moving away from his creation is now moving toward it. Five times the narrator presents a God who says, “Never again.”
I’ve said those words plenty of times to God. As a young teen, I beat a path to the altar of the local Nazarene church. I think I owe them for carpet. Each time I’d promise God never to do again the thing I promised last time never to do again. I became eloquent in my promises. Each “never again” had to be equal to or better than the last one. Certainly God was recording these. I promised to read my Bible every day, and to pray. I promised to witness to Dickie Bennett. I promised to stop thinking sexually about girls. I promised to study harder and make an A in algebra. I promised to treat my sisters kinder.
All eloquent promises. All eloquently broken.
