Point of View

One morning as I was out for a walk I noticed the clouds that were hanging ominously in the sky. They were laden with rain, and looked very dark. I was thinking about how the clouds made the whole world seem cold and sort of heavy. The darkness of the clouds was the most noticeable part of the entire scene. All of the rain in the clouds made them so very black.

Then I remembered times when I have traveled somewhere by air. Of course the plane is so high that you are above the clouds. If you have ever flown, you know that when you look at clouds from above, they are beautiful and extremely white. It makes no difference how much rain they are holding, they are still white.

So, why would clouds that look so black from down here on Earth look white from up above? Then it dawned on me. These black clouds aren’t really black, they are just full of rain. When they have that much rain in them they block the light of the Sun. If you can’t see the Sun it changes your perspective on everything. The light from the Sun makes the world bright and warm.

Clouds don’t really have any color. They are just moisture. When you are above the clouds, on the side where the Sun is, you see that they reflect the light of the Sun. But when you are below them they hide the Sun, giving them the impression of being black. The sky is still bright, we just can’t see it because of the clouds. It is all in the point of view.

Then I felt like God showed me that our lives are like that. The Son of God is the light of this world. When we are looking at Him things look bright and warm. When problems come along they are like the clouds. The more difficult the problems, the more heavy laden with tears they are. Many times our problems loom between us and the Son. When that happens we can’t see the light. Our world seems dark, cold and lonely because we have lost sight of the Son.

So why do our problems seem so dark? It is because we are seeing them from here on Earth. If we could see them from God’s point of view we would see that our problems are rarely as dark as we think. They are simply blocking our view of the Son.  From where God is, we would see that His love is still there, and His light is still shining. God never loses sight of the fact that, like the clouds, our problems and tears are temporary and they will pass.

Just like the warmth of the Sun dissolves the clouds, the warmth of the Son of God will melt away our heartaches. How long that takes depends a lot on us. The more we trust in Him and lean on Him, the quicker He can rid our hearts of heavy black clouds. Trusting God isn’t always easy. The Bible teaches us that even though we believe in God, there is also some unbelief in us. That is part of being human and God understands that. He is there to help us with our doubts if we ask Him.

So, if we give our hearts to God and serve Him, some day we will be in Heaven and can look back on our clouds of heartache. When we see them from God’s point of view we will understand that the Son’s light is and was always shining. Whether or not we can see it is all in the point of view.