Flying is always an interesting adventure for me. Firstly, the people I see & hear NEVER cease to amaze me. If you ever think God the Creator is limited in His creativity, visit an airport! The smorgasbord of people there baffles me…all different ages, builds, skin/hair/eye colors, accents. There billions of idiosyncrasies reminding me that, just like snowflakes, there are no two people exactly alike. Further, everyone of those has fingerprints unique to him or her. Not just ONE, but multiple PER PERSON!

I could sit and ponder just THAT all day, but it is not what I initially set out to compose. Rather, the occurrence of the flight itself rather than with whom I was sharing it.

The flight can be broken down like a story…there’s the departure, the time spent in air on the way to your destination, & lastly, the arrival. The takeoff is usually exhilarating, the landing, sometimes nerve wracking (as was the case yesterday), & the flight itself, hopefully, uneventful.

Somehow, yesterday’s longer leg of the trip (after the first & only layover) seemed to reveal something to me I can’t say I’ve noticed before. Leaving my second airport of the day, the sun was completely lost among the clouds. I tend to think the difference in a partly sunny day & partly cloudy day is the amount of blue versus gray in the sky. To me, it’s not a glass half full/empty argument of optimism or pessimism. It’s clearly science. Yesterday’s sky was completely devoid blue sky. There was only daylight struggling to break through a translucent barrier of “cotton” in the sky. It was, by my definition, cloudy, dismal, & gloomy.

Interestingly enough, it only stayed that way (for my travels, anyway) momentarily. Minutes later, the sunlight pouring into the windows of the plane left me seeing spots on the back of the seat in front of me. I had look out the window while still ascending, & what I saw was an ocean of blindingly white lamb’s wool. The cloud cover was beneath us like a sea of foam that rolled & stretched as far as the eye could see. When I pulled my vision back into the cabin, the spots were overly abundant.

Here’s what I noticed that you probably already have as well. The conditions below the clouds were dramatically different than those above the clouds. Often in life, the same can be said for you or for me. It all depends on your point of view. You see, my perspective from the ground was quite opposite of that from the air. The sun was, in rather scientific fact, burning that day. Nothing was going to stop it. It will be the same from now until the Lord tells it to burn out & instructs the stars to go dim.

My perspective, however, would not allow me to see the sun’s brightness from where I was initially. Now, I wouldn’t dare compare my climb above the clouds to God’s perspective. Actually, it causes me to realize still how infinite a perspective it is. If just thirty or forty thousand feet can differ that much, imagine how much more complete God’s picture is as He views from heavens beyond!

It is He who reminds us that the sun still shines though we cannot see it through the clouds. It is He who can lift our eyes above the gloom that surrounds us currently. Don’t you remember the time you were going through that dark time? Isn’t it amazing how He brought you through it? Can’t you see how He was working through it the entire time? It wasn’t that easy to recognize beneath the cloud cover though, was it?

Despite what clouds may be lingering over your life right now, just know that on the other side, the sun is still shining. The darkness doesn’t last forever. The clouds break, the light breaks through as it has been fighting to for so long already, & God gets the glory. He was there all along & will continue His faithfulness toward you from now throughout eternity.

Remember, as Paul reminded us at the end of 2 Corinthians 4, there is far more going on here than meets the eye.