THE CLOUD OF GOD'S PRESENCE

This morning during my Quiet Time I sat looking out of my window at the exquisite clouds rolling through the sky.  With the trees standing tall in their winter bareness, the sky is big and so were the clouds.  It was beautiful.  As I watched them I was reminded of a poem I wrote about clouds back in the 60s.  They spoke to me about wandering and freedom.

CLOUDS

White puffs of smokeless smoke, airless air, cottonless cotton,

Floating freely and uninhibitedly through the sky

Wandering aimlessly, coming from everywhere, yet going nowhere

Changing their patternless shapes with no hesitation

Not one taking the form of another.

Scattered haphazardly and helter-skelterly across the

Brilliant blue background of the sky

The white puffs attract the attention of dreamers

And romantics everywhere

Their nomadism and freedom is admired and desired by all.

I thought about the Exodus story and how God Presence was always with the folks walking through the desert in the form of a cloud by day; how when Moses used to go to the Tent of Meeting, the cloud of God’s Presence would descend upon the tent and Moses would speak to God face to face. On the Mount of Transfiguration God came in a cloud and said, “This is my Son.  Listen to him”.  Jesus’ disciples watched him ascend to heaven in a cloud; and Jesus will return to gather us together in a cloud at his Second Coming.

The clouds that surround me day by day are really God’s Presence, which is everywhere.  It made me appreciate clouds all the more.  I was reminded of times when my mom and I would lie on the ground and look up at the clouds and see all kinds of shapes and forms in them.  She was a cloud watcher as well.  Going through her photo albums there were pictures and pictures of just clouds.  It’s nice to know she is up there within touching distance with them now.  It’s nice to know that she and I both are continually immersed in Clouds of God’s Presence, both on this side of heaven and the other side as well.

EVEN THE WIND & THE SEA OBEY

One of the perks of working as a camp director is I got to live at the beach during the winter.  I worked year round but only had to be on property during the spring and summer.  My winter work could be done anywhere so I chose to live at Rehoboth Beach Delaware.

My love affair with the ocean began early in my life.  My father was in the Navy and my mother chose to follow him from port to port.  Much of my life was spent living close to the ocean and I would spend most of my time on the beach.  I have seen the sea calm and I have seen the sea at its roughest.  My mother taught me early to both fear and respect the ocean because its water and waves are uncontrollable by human hands or intentions.

It was this love of the ocean that subconsciously taught me about God before I was old enough to want to seek Him out.  The winds and the waves had a definite life flow to them; the tides come in and go out just as I breathe air in and out of my body.  The ocean was wild and nothing or no one human could control it.  I saw there was a definite power and rhythm to the ocean and I attributed that to the God who created it.  As I grew older and began getting more involved with God, I knew without a doubt that God, and God alone created and was responsible for that rhythm and power.

I find it hard to understand how anyone who loves nature, especially the ocean, can deny the existence of God.  Nature is full of evidence of the existence of God, especially the ocean.  People who deny God become their own god and feel they control their own life and all that is around them.  Life at the beach would challenge them; I would challenge them.  Can you control the wind and the waves; can you control the coming of morning and the going of the day?  You may understand them but you cannot control them.  Only God can do that.

I am not a scientist but I appreciate their efforts.  They have accomplished many good things.  People like Stephen Hawking, who expend much of their time and energy developing and proving theories amaze me, for they live in a realm that is not where I live.  I read that he is on a quest to find the theory of everything; one unifying answer to all the questions of life.  I looked at some pictures of pages and pages of equations and it blew my mind.

My only question is how can you do that without bringing God into the equation?  For me God IS the one unifying answer to all the questions of life.

God is not a theory.  God is the one True thing, Truth Himself.  As much as the realm of thought of the scientist is above my thoughts, so God’s thoughts and ways are on a higher realm than theirs.  They may eventually know how everything works but they can never have control over the way things work.  Their theory of everything may be proven at some point in time, but it will not be the Truth.  God’s Truth is proven every morning as I watch the daylight come, and every evening when I watch the daylight go, and all the other times when I watch the wind whip up the waves on the ocean.

MY WAY OF BEING IN THE WORLD

In the beginning God created the world and gave life to everything He created.  Jesus came into the world and gave life to those who believed and received it.  There is an order to life, a rhythm to life.  Nature reveals God’s power and His attributes.  Nature reveals a divine order and a divine balance to life.

I feel it most in solitude and silence.  There is a letting go and a decompressing that I settle into, a stillness that lets me know all is well.  I cease striving and simply BE.

My tree teachers outside my window are covered with snow; they are standing tall, still, and majestic against the sky.  They are at peace and I am at peace as I look at them.  They are in their place, not struggling to be anything or anywhere else than where they are now; in divine order and in perfect balance.  They live quietly as each season comes and goes; not their own rhythm but God’s divine rhythm.  That is their way of being in the world; what they do to be that way is their religion.

I don’t worship these trees but I do learn from them.  I don’t worship nature or the things that God created, but I do learn from them.  They reveal God to me.  They point me to the Creator of all things, as all good teachers are to do.  God reveals Himself in nature and I do well to watch and wait in its presence. I do well to learn from its order and rhythm my way of being in the world; this is my religion.