Tuesday, July 29, 2008

cloudy day


although it's almost 90 degrees and sunny today in south dakota, i'm feeling a little cloudy on the inside.

i have some long and deep anxieties rearing their ugly heads again, and i am trying to push them under. i hate it when fear pops in, for no good reason. also, i'm thinking of my dear friend kirsten, who is battling clouds of her own.

thankfully, when i turned to one of my FAVORITE devotional writers, he had a great word for today about God and clouds:

My Utmost for His Highest

Just a short excerpt:

Behold, He is coming with clouds . . . —Revelation 1:7

In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. "The clouds are the dust of His feet" ( Nahum 1:3 ). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds— He does not come in clear-shining brightness.

It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child— a relationship simply between God and our own souls, and where other people are but shadows. Until other people become shadows to us, clouds and darkness will be ours every once in a while. Is our relationship with God becoming more simple than it has ever been?

click on the link above if you want to read the rest of the devo...i hope that you (and i!) remember that God is building us up for the more than we can ever know, even if it just looks like another cloudy day.

7 comments:

Karen said...

I'm feeling a little cloudy myself today. Probably from Chris leaving after a great weekend. I'm having a Mommy Day, too. I guess she's finally got it figured out, eh? I guarantee that her relationship with God is pure and simple...need to figure out how to get some of that without, you know, dying.

Hope your clouds are dusty, friend.

:-)

Unknown said...

Thanks Bobbi I needed that, too.

carey said...

argh. i hate it when my friends are feeling cloudy. bobbi, i could really use a "sunny day" date...not that i can help, much, but it would just be nice. maybe next week? or sunday?

bobbione8y said...

oh, thanks care :)

i miss our dates too, we need to schedule one soon. not to worry about me though, i am doing well, just trying not to be a fear-driven person! things are in God's hands, all of the things... :)

you guys are cool. glad the devo spoke to someone besides me :)

zema said...

A cloudy day will mean more to me from now on. Thanks for that.
Zema

K~ said...

Thanks Bob, I feel all over the place right now. I read a little, blog a little, ravelry a little, clean a bit, knit, crochet and craft like a feind! and now I am tired. Thanks so much for those words. For me right now, i wish some trials came one at a time. K~

cherk said...

Bobbi-Thinking of you and your friend-cloudy days are not that fun.