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
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