CLOUDS

What a WONDERFUL World

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Natural Wonder

I wonder what world  you and I awake to every day, a world that confronts you or a world that gently wows you?    I have learned over the years not to compare each persons world as we can so quickly dismiss other Peoples world though our own coloured view-point.    What seems so insignificant to you may be so large and debilitating to others,  yet in this world there are some things that flatten the field of play, so to speak, and we can all empathise, the birth of a child, the loss of a loved one, the securing of some future event,  having the supply of food on your table.

My aim is to encourage you to consider the world you awake to today, perhaps an exciting event begins todays adventure or perhaps an unsettled issue hung over from last night, or even the concern on how  we will get through the next day and survive it.   So many worlds we awake to each morning.   What is the world before you? how is it rolling out in front of you?    A small decision, a huge event, a life changing or even a threatening day “……..this is my day……..”
Stop now and have a look at your world, the people who occupy it with all the movement of life, the events that create the terrain before you, the valleys and mountains to walk.   Stop for a moment and think what is my world like, what will I see and experience today?
The Psalmist in Psalm 98:1 (Message) says “Sing to God a brand-new song.    He’s made a world of wonders!    He rolled up his sleeves, He set things right.    The context of the song is important here, to sing a brand new song is a good thing but some times  as life is overwhelming we can not find a new song.   I am told in our travels in Africa that we should understand that “Africans sing if they are happy and sing if the are sad, so they sing at all times”  Celebration and song is a way of life there, happy or sad it’s  a song, I don’t find that in the West however perhaps it is something  we should learn.   One of the many things I love about my wife is that she carries a song within her constantly and when she looses that it changes her view and her inner ways, I see the impact of carrying an inner song in her which is wonderful and one of the many things i love in her.    OK back to the context of the song,  do you not see it here its, “he’s made  a WORLD OF WONDERS” this has to be a good way of life, realising that my life and my  song has a connection to a WORLD OF WONDERS.      With my every turn, as I open my eyes there are wonders to be seen and found, our Father has filled a world out with wonders for us to see, find and encounter so that we become those that anticipate wonders with every new day.   Perhaps “new mercies every day” have a direct relationship with realising and seeing a world of wonders as well.

Christ of the clouds

Our song Is through the medium of his wonders, I will say it again our new song has a direct relationship to the wonders we see.   May be songs are not sung when we do not account for the “…world of wonders…”.    O Lord I want to see your wonders at every hand not a narrow band but  be overwhelmed at every hand, seeing your wonders all around us, circulating our lives a “…world of wonders…”
“The wonders of our God” the old hymns sung, it is the record and impact of God with his rolled up sleeves creating wonders, these are the impact of this hymn.    Charles Wesley saw “O for  a thousand Tongues’ to declare the wonder of our God, he grasped and saw.
Oh That we might see the world of his wonders, just as Charles Wesley seeing  every aspect of God coming through  and causing us to shout with him,  with the shout of the deaf and the leap of the lame, shout wonders of our world to God.
Our world is his palette, his brush stroke as he lays down his mark throughout our world, can I be one that will see the world of wonders around me constantly.  O God I ask for a life filled by the world of wonders – then push for it son, I feel and hear  a cry inside me, for the world of wonders, your world your creative order where you are.
We are  invited as the readers to sing to the Lord a new song (cf. 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 144:9; 149:1) because in His strength (right hand and arm are symbols of power) He has provided salvation and revealed His righteousness. God’s great salvation is possible because of His loyal love (ḥeseḏ) and faithfulness (these may be trans. “faithful, loyal love”). Remembering His covenant with His people Israel, the Lord delivered and saved them.    A WORLD OF WONDERS surrounds us waiting for us to pay attention even in the midst of life and challenges of struggles.    
LET ME EVEN GET TO THE POINT, LET ME  CHALLENGE YOU TO SEE THE WONDERS THAT AWAITS YOU IN THIS DAY, not just the miracle of healing which is magnificent in its self but wonders of life, growth, change, wonders in every way.  My cry is that we do not lose the wonders of our world for one wonder only but that we are able to encourage each one of us to be awakened to the wonders of our Father
In view of the wonders of grace and righteousness displayed in God’s salvation, the whole creation is invited to unite in praise.    My spiritual father loved the song by Louis Armstrong “What a wonderful World” and every time I hear this song sung  I think of him,  but even with out that thought I find that song moving me to appreciate the wonders of the world he has planted us in.   I am fully aware that there are human horrors taking place that many encounter each day yet in the midst of the world, shocked as we all can be of human atrocities, just t stop and wait and begin to part those things to see and look at the wonderful world that the Father has given us, he has and will enable us to see himself in our day.    I pray Lord that though the dim light sometimes of life we will see the world of wonders so that we may see our immediate world transformed through the palette of your brush strokes our lives.     That you might see the wonder of s simple life, that you might see the wonders of God at every hand throughout your day, how he involves in daily actions in and through you and those around you

Water Wonder

Open your eyes to the world of wonder!

Weather Challenges – Ready not Reluctant

/ 'face2face' - Gareth Duffty / 1 Comment

Clouds roll in!

Strange “weather patterns” moved in to the Cape area where we live when in South Africa, from our house we look across to the Stand, a sea front town and look down off a mountain to a harbour along with a small town called Gordons Bay, to the side of the harbour a ‘blue flag’ beach called Bikini Beach, the name passes comment to its size and the flag status to its safety from shark attacks and cleanliness.    Well we have lost them all, due to sea mist over the last three days, they disappeared under a white blanket.  As a matter of fact as I sit writing this it’s happening for the third day in row, right in front of me.  A hanging white mist separating two worlds.   One world stands in sunlight warming everything up and is very inviting, the other world in a dimly lit damp cold atmosphere, uninviting.   In the mist the temperature drops to 17.5 C and felt really cold and clammy, outside of the mist its temperatures rise to 27.5 C warm and bright.

As we drive along the roads we have a choice of entering into the clammy, damp, clouded world of the mist or to stay in the sun soaked world where its bright, warm and has blue sky, the contrast is so dramatic.   The change that confronts you on every level is quite something.   Naturally speaking I want to stay in the warm where it seems safe and your sight lines are clear, seeing with the ability to see distance there, familiar and understood the world of the sunny land.     Some times we have to drive into the mist and its like being in a ‘pea soup’ as they once called fog in London many years ago.
In the land of mist it’s all change, the familiar becomes an unfamiliar world we have to drive at a slow speed to even enable us to stay on the road, to make sure that we stay within the accepted direction.  The familiar surroundings with a little mist which changes it all, it removes our ability to depend on the usual and thrusts us into a world of learning new trust.   My physical senses have to be heightened, my sight, my hearing all have to be applied more intentionally and now I don’t have a choice as my house has been enveloped into the mist, so in order to get home, to where I belong I need to trust.
I don’t think moving into a mist where life becomes unclear and changes are afoot is unusual     As I look through the scriptures I find 151 references to clouds in the NASB version, clouds appear for different reasons.    But some speak right into my aim of my writing, the first reference we come across brings significance to clouds, mist and sets some great discoveries into the clouds if we will only take a look.
Genesis 9:12

God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations;

13 I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.

It is a challenge to enter into the dimly damp uninviting world    Although amazing, set in the clouds there are important indicators, signs in a world that we have to let go of the usual places, where we can order and control, and  come into the communion with God, where we let go and see what will be opened up to us.   A world where Covenant signs are seen, where we are so out on a limb, some times feeling insecure with nothing around to take hold of, yet God in his love to you and me exposes his Covenant ways, marking us out with a sign in the midst of mist!

A sign that will stay never mind what the situation or conditions surrounding you and I, a sign that marks us out, a sign that marks us out not to have life as usual but to participate in the adventure of a Covenant God – come on into the mist you will see better once in and we are transformed to look differently.
Exodus 20:21 tells me of the life style that Moses has taken on, a way that makes the readiness to enter into the cloud environment, as if once been there in that place of transformation or transfiguration there is a readiness to let go and enter in to let our eyes be confused the senses be confused that we look to see and hear the things that really matter, Gods view-point on the matters of life.    Moses entered into the “thick cloud” a place of transformation, of intimate conversation, of seeing worlds to come, a coming Kingdom that is arriving in our world today, shaking and rattling life as we know it, as a God – Christ focused world emerges in our world from the “thick cloud”.   Life in the mist, is to be at home in the view from God’s perspective!
More of Moses mist, cloud experiences

Misty, Misty, Misty!

Exodus 24:15 Then Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.     16 The glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud.      17 And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the mountain top.     18 Moses entered the midst of the cloud as he went up to the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

This is an common story,  mist and clouds appear in the saints experience, we have to be ready, rather than reluctant to participate.

My encouragement to you is to enter the world of the unfamiliar from the familiar, make it an experience, that my trust gets lost in the Christ and not in the world of my control.   That I am willing for my sight and my feelings to be adjusted so that my paradigms can be transformed.   For Psalm 91:1, 2 tells me that in this environment “cloud” is where the Lord is enthroned.  In the place of change the place of let go the place of a new reference point.    But I have to be ready to let go of my existing world frame to catch the necessary impact.
What more was it for the three disciples accounted for in the experience of the cloud environment when their reference point of life was firmly adjusted.   As the participated and where brought into the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain, they were told to say nothing!   My whole of life has been given a new reference point and I must hold it in my heart!
For the clouds of Mark 9 and Luke 9 overshadowed them, here they saw a new vista, they heard a new voice, a confirming voice, a Fathers voice spoken.   O yes I know they did not get it all as they were eager to build alters and required gentle adjustment, but surely their viewpoint was adjusted.
A place where their entire world was taken from them and a new world forcibly put into their minds and memories.   For in this cloud a VOICE came, perhaps a “..bow…”  (Gen. 9:12,13) a sign of covenant they heard set into the cloud, there are things to listen to as we are willing to let go.    They looked around and saw no one their eyes trained for different seeing as they let go and embraced this environment of the Father
O yes fear was certainly an aspect as they had to depart from one paradigm to another here, God is constantly inviting us into a place to have to trust him and allow him to change our paradigms.   It seems that only a voice in the mist, the unclear, can help any one of us.   Be careful that we don’t run around listening for voices, looking for some one to say some thing when what we need is one voice to speak peace – covenant love – bring sight to the reality of Gods working in the middle of when we cannot see, or hear and all change is happening.   Coming out of the cloud there will be change, you can guarantee that,  we had better “…listen to him…”.
The emotion will run high, the adrenalin will flow, the thoughts of ‘God help me’ clear my eyes o God to see, will all be there in our cries.     The familiar is under scrutiny and is demanding we reach for the unfamiliar.   Be careful we don’t bring the familiar to secure and settle the unfamiliar at this stage.    Its walking a different way!
Never been this way before it’s a misty foggy, way it is like we don’t know what’s going to appear next out of the mist as the nature of this kind of transformation, comes with no warning, you don’t see it coming but you have to settle trust and peace long before.
One lesson is that what you are going for or travelling towards had better be on the inside of you at this stage, as you cannot depend on natural eyesight here.   It’s a deep encounter inside of you time, that you walk away from, never to depend on the familiar again,  but now you have graduated to trust the inside of yourself, more so, a transformation takes place and you are taken out of the mundane into the adventure of being led by the Holy Spirit

In all this my body tells me I want to stay in the sun where its warm I don’t want to step away from the comfort, yet I know I have to step to the unfamiliar trusting the Father.  Knowing it’s about a new level, Sandra often ministers that every new level needs a new encounter a transfiguration to take us into the order God wants us in.     My sight has to change, my peripheral vision my long-term view to see anew, with sharp insight for the moment I now live in!           A new environment awaits us all ever day, every morning as we wake it’s another day to set out for transformations, transfiguration to see and be different, to come from the mist and to walk away knowing and understanding a little more, fully aware that another day will come and invite us again into that transfiguration, enabling  God to bring about his goal in the earth through us. Give yourself to a misty, cloudy new encounter!   What got you here worked and we can celebrate all but we also know it will not get us through tomorrows challenges, yet in the mist/cloud we will hear a voice, see a new way and return more ready for the challenge, walking with a people who too have been trained in the mist!.

To be ready not reluctant to embrace the unfamiliar over the familiar, A New environment