Look to the Skies
Tuesday (November 25)
Look to the Skies
Psalm 81:7a
In distress you called, and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder.
I find the above line wonderfully peculiar. The audio-visual language becomes more vivid the more I read the words: “In the secret place of thunder.” It’s almost as if walking with God is a bit like chasing storms. We can’t map out the Spirit’s movements. We can’t bottle up His energy through a Sunday- morning program or a thirty-minute devotional time. We can’t make Him submit to our routine or fit neatly into our organized schedule. He is too incomprehensively awesome to fit the mold of our plans and expectations. This reminds me of the time God confronted Job through a whirlwind in Job 38:1-2 & 35: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are?’” We can be confident that Almighty God will show up at precisely the moment we need Him, and that He will comfort us in our distress and uphold us when we’re limping along, but how He’ll do it and where He’ll show up and in what manner—well, that’s like trying to send a satellite into outer space to find the secret place of thunder.
Friend, maybe today what you need most from a devotional or a podcast or a sermon isn’t another principle to add to your already-full to-do list. Maybe you just need to pause for a while and reflect deeply on the mysterious and magnificent Personhood of God, realizing that even as you follow in His steps and walk by His light and abide in His word, you won’t ever come to comprehend Him. You’ll never get so near to His countenance that you can track His movements and foretell where and when and how He’ll stir next. So don’t forget His transcendence in the midst of His imminence. Remember His commission to you through the Prophet Jeremiah: “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart,” and just keep following hard after Him—in your joy, in your confusion, even in your distress—till you feel His comfort afresh in the secret recesses of your heart, which, like that secret storehouse of thunder, He knows inside and out.