Last Saturday, I awoke to a most unwelcome intruder. Wildfire smoke.
If you live anywhere in the Western United States,
he probably has visited you at some point too.
Throughout the week, our air quality has swung back and forth between hazardous and unhealthy and back to hazardous. The sun has looked like the evil eye of Sauron gazing down from the hazy skies in all it’s frightful red glory. It quite literally looks, and smells, like we are living in a campfire. It’s been 7 days since I’ve seen the sky.
Quite naturally, people have been upset about the smoke. My brother and sister in law who are visiting from the East Coast have never seen anything like this. It has been depressing and strange and stifling to live in what feels like a twilight zone of sorts.
The other day however, I noticed something. When I lifted my eyes, craned my neck and looked directly overhead, I could tell the smoky atmosphere above me was a bit brighter and clearer than the areas around me, closer to the ground. It was still smoky. Still hazy. But it was a different shade of haze, if that is possible. A brighter haze.
I smiled to myself.
I knew why.
Though I couldn’t see it-beyond the smoke, the sky was still blue.
Then, I smiled again, because I felt the Lord speaking to my soul-
it’s the same way with me, child. I know it’s hard to see me right now. But I’m here.
Fires. Hurricanes. Coronavirus. The election. The world continues to slip and slide into what seems like a never-ending downward spiral. Like the smoke that’s in the air, the depravity, injustice and calamity billowing all around me can feel so heavy and overpowering. Unwanted, it settles in paths once clear, making the way before me so difficult. Where to go, what to do…
Then people ask me, Where is your God in this?
I understand.
I don’t like this smoke. I wish it’d go away. I miss waking up to the colors of the dawn, I miss laughing and loving and living all day under the friendly comfort of an indigo sky, I miss the stars at night, dancing above me and telling me they can’t wait until heaven, where one day I’ll join them in their dance, praising the God who created us both.
Yet still I know, beyond the smoke, the sun still rises. The sky is still blue. The stars still dance.
Friends, this smoke won’t last forever.
And neither will sin.
Neither will hate.
Neither will injustice.
Or cruelty.
Or death.
“For now we see in a glass, dimly; but then we shall see face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as I am fully known.” -1 Corinthians 13:12
One day, the smoke will leave. We shall see clearly again.
And one day, oh glorious thought, one day soon, the sin in my world, and the sin in myself, will be laid aside forever, and then-then I shall see him. My savior. My comforter. My deliverer. My King.
Finally and fully, I will look in his eyes, and the smoke will clear.
The pain of separation from him will no longer be felt.
I will see him, and with him, everything else.
And no, today is not that day. But just as I lifted my head directly above me, and knew beyond the smoke there lay a blue sky, so I lift my head towards heaven, and know beyond the confines of time and space, and sin and sorrow, my God is preparing a place for me.
It is safe there. It is sinless there.
And it is real.
“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”
-1 John 3:2-3
