My wife knows about computers and the internet.  Not me!  After all, I was the one who hastily promised that one more problem with my laptop computer and out the window it goes!  However, it has heard me and is on its best behavior.   For the moment!

Let me ask you a question.  How does this computer work?  I don’t get it.  Know what scares me?  What’s next?  The new-and-improved whatever?  Now that I’ve mastered my clever use of the microwave!  Change doesn’t stop.  Not for all my wishing.  When I get the hang of something, it becomes obsolete.  That’s not nice!  Or fair!  Like all the talk about ‘the cloud’.  Head in the clouds, sounds about right!  What is it?  About storing information?  ‘In the cloud’?  Where?  How?  What?  When?  Oy vay, already!  Sure is cloudy to me!

Why not turn to the Bible?  About time, right?  I was reading in Acts chapter one, after Jesus’ resurrection and His amazing appearances, which the disciples could not deny(even doubting Thomas!), that Jesus is ALIVE!  Their collective jaw has fallen wide open.  Acts 1:9–‘…He was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.’  A cloud.

Jesus has been with them in person, face-to-face.  But now in a new realm, which they’re not able to see through or penetrate.  Clouds now separate us from Him.  Thick clouds like the one’s in the desert that shaded God’s people from the blazing sun after they left slavery in Egypt.  When my wife and I traveled in Egypt, visiting the Pyramids, the Temple of Luxor, and the Valley of the Kings, any cloud that offered even a millisecond of shade was most welcome.  God’s gift to us…and the ancient Israelites.

Today, spiritually, ‘the cloud’ requires the exercise of faith,  a certainty beyond sight.  We can believe in Him whom we cannot see.  Faith becomes stronger when tough times muscle in.  No pain…no gain.  Don’t bemoan ‘the cloud’.  The dark days when the sun seems far away, when warmth has given way to some shiver of icy cold trouble.  When God seems out-of-reach, even out-of-touch.

Yes,  Jesus is no longer here on earth.  What He’s given us, what He’s left for us, is sufficient to manage even those cloudy days and rainy nights that come our way.  The Bible, the Holy Spirit, other believers, prayer, faith…

I thank the Lord for clouds.  I’ll stand under them knowing that He is above yet never far away.  His safety… under the cloud.  For some day, not too far off, we’ll be in heaven, enjoying all the light we ever wanted.  We won’t even need the sun above.  For there will be the Son.  The Lamb who is the lamp(Revelation 21: 23).  Look!  The clouds have parted and disappeared!  Beautiful weather for the forever future…!

Prayer:  Thank you, Lord, for shade and protection.  Feels good to be in your family.   In Jesus’ name.  Amen.