Meet Roy

1 John 1:5: This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

Have you ever had the pleasure of knowing Roy G. Biv?  I learned about him very early in my grade school days as we were taught about colors. Mr. Roy’s name miraculously spelled out the names of the colors of the rainbow in the order they appear … red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. I was always fascinated by how Mr. Roy and his arch of colors would mysteriously appear in the sky, or in the grass of our front yard as I ran through the sprinkler on hot, summer days.

One day, during Sunday school class, our teacher talked about how God spoke to people in the Bible. Displaying a picture of a rainbow, she told us God was in the rainbow and spoke to Noah after the flood. Next, displaying a picture of a fiery bush, she told us God was in the fire and spoke to Moses when he gave him the Ten Commandments. Then she said, “God even told Moses his name. Do any of you know what God’s name is?” Eyes still riveted on the picture of the rainbow, my arm shot up like a rocket. Of course I knew God’s name … what an easy question! As I was called upon to provide the answer, I confidently pronounced, “Roy!”

Well. I must have turned thirteen shades of red amidst the peals of laughter erupting from my classmates, and I learned, sadly, that Roy was not God’s name. It was ‘I AM.’

As the years passed, I learned that God has many wonderful names, and although Roy is not one of them, Roy is a part of who God is. One of the most beautiful characteristics of God in the scriptures is light … he is the Light of the world, and the Light that shines in the darkness. And fascinatingly, science has revealed light is made up of a spectrum of spectacular, brilliant colors! As light is refracted by water droplets or prisms, we are treated to a spontaneous display of the rainbow spectrum. I’m led to think about all the times I have been delighted by the sudden appearance of Roy G. Biv: dancing across the living room wall as sunshine streams through the prism glass windows of the front door; stretching across the sky before or after a rainstorm; twinkling in the tiny faceted grains of sand in the stone that sculpts the patio, and shimmering in the spray of the hose as I water the garden. And, looking down from the window of an airplane, a rainbow is not an arch, but a compete circle! There is something infinitely comforting about seeing the shadow of your aircraft completely embraced in the center of the circle of God’s colors.

But my favorite way to encounter Mr. Roy is intimately personal, because God’s colors are also in our strands of hair. If you’ve never experienced God this way, step into the sunlight, take a strand of hair and place it very close to your eye. As you focus your eyes only on the hair, you’ll begin to see teeny, tiny rainbows dancing along the strand. This speaks volumes to me about how intimately we are connected to our creator. We have the very DNA of God in us because we are his children, made in his image. Of course we have rainbows in our hair!

Hmm … maybe I should change my middle name to Roy …

Prayer: Light of the world, thank you for placing your light in me. Help me to shine your beautiful spectrum of colors into this world that hungers for sudden appearances of your presence.

Author’s note: The evening I wrote this devotional, I went out onto the back porch to sit for a few minutes, as a wonderful breeze was blowing through the backyard. Suddenly, something told me to look up. There, arching above the trees, was a brilliant rainbow. I couldn’t believe my eyes … and yet I should have believed. Of course there was a rainbow. God speaks to us supernaturally, and he shows up the same way. I think he was pleased I listened to him and wrote about Roy. <3