
My fear of turbulence had been resolved years ago thanks to Psalm 104:3. God is my personal chariot home, so now I simply close my eyes and soar through the storm by chatting with him.
So Tuesday, I said as we lifted off into the storm, “I trust you, Jesus, and I can endure whatever this brings.”
He answered me! “Larry, do you suppose I could actually make this fun?” He actually said that!
As we hit the clouds, I realized it was fairly smooth, and opened my eyes. We had passed through a very thin layer of clouds and were now climbing toward another ceiling. I smiled but thought, “Hang on”, and waited again.
We went through two more thin layers with almost no turbulence! Now we flew among wispy, undulating white streamers and dark thunder-pots, every geometrical shape imaginable. Yet another layer lay still above us.
Just then a beam of sunlight broke through the top layer above us, poking at an angle downward through the layers below, starting bright yellow, but morphing deeper scarlet as it penetrated each layer below. God’s view!
And then God said to me, “Are not all the clouds part of the sky?” The beauty I beheld in that moment was not possible without a storm bringing rain to a parched land below. And it was the unblocking of eternal sunlight from above that illuminated the beauty of the whole.
God had chosen right there to validate the Streamside model of unity for me. I believe it was because I had yielded in faith. Are not all his children of all shapes and colors part of his family? And aren’t we like stormy layers, blocking his light from above?
But if we learn to unblock that flow, what multi-colored beauty we shall see at Streamside! Can we blend our differences in a way that yields to unity, thelife-giving sunbeam of Jesus as family?