The Son is behind every cloud

 I  don't like clouds.  I mean, I do like light, white, puffy clouds against a strikingly blue sky.  Of course, who doesn't like those?  I'm talking about those heavy, menacing clouds that bring darkness all around.  I also dislike it tremendously when gray clouds take over the entire sky and the weather person on TV uses the term "overcast."  UGH!  It's as if my very soul becomes "overcast" and I can't feel the beat of my own heart.

Sigh...

But then, I read something on the devotional: My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers that made me rethink my position on clouds:  "clouds are connected with God."

hmmm....

He also says:  "It is by those very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith."

But then, Chambers also writes: "It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials: through every cloud He brings, He wants us to unlearn something.  His purpose in the cloud is to simplify our belief until our relationship to Him is exactly that of a child: God and my own soul, other people are shadows..."

At first, the two thoughts seemed contradictory to me: on the one hand, God is teaching us to walk by faith when He brings clouds to our lives...on the other, God wants us to unlearn something...so, what is it?

After thinking about it for a while, I think the two concepts are NOT mutually exclusive.  I think they are complementary.  They close the teaching-learning circle.  

He is teaching us to walk by faith and we are learning to have faith like a child.  There is nothing like the clouds to bring storms.  And there's nothing like storms to teach us we are completely dependent on God's Power and Will.  There is nothing or no one else in the great storms but Jesus and me.  We might be surrounded by people while the winds and the precipitation are savaging our shelter, but in our heart...in the depth of our soul...we are alone with Christ.  We are completely in His Hands...the only Mighty Hands capable of saving.  It's a simultaneous act: He is teaching us the reality of our dependence, and we are learning He is the Only One we can depend on, like a child clinging to his Father's waist when plagued by his worst fears.  Everyone else is a shadow.  It's just me and My Daddy...

The clouds help me unlearn any illusion of self-reliance or of dependability on others...on any other who is not God.

I still don't like the darkness that clouds bring...I tremble at the ominous sound of the word "overcast"...but, perhaps keeping in mind that clouds are connected to God's desire for us to become closer to Him, would help me have a renewed perspective.  After all, the Son is always behind every cloud!