thick clouds of darkness

Today we read from 1 Kings 8:1-66 in the One Year Bible. We read that God indwells the temple that Solomon builds for Him, and He does so in a thick cloud of darkness, so thick that the priests can't perform their duties because they can't see.

That was how people experienced God in the Old Testament. As the cloud that traveled before them in the desert. As the thick cloud of darkness in the temple. As the cloud that hovered over Mount Sinai. And in the New Testament, we continue to see Him portrayed as a cloud, when Jesus is baptized, when Jesus is on the Mount of Transfiguration... God the Father often appears as a cloud. In fact, that's one of the very few ways we see Him represented in the Bible.

And today, He is often mysterious and dark. Our understanding is cloudy and through a mirror darkly. But one day we will see Him face to face. We can't now, because seeing Him is too wonderful for our earthly bodies to handle. Seeing the face of God would kill us. That's not a bad thing, because we would then be in His presence forever. But as long as we want to walk the earth for a while longer, we can't see His face.

One day we will. We can look forward to that.

God, thanks for shrouding yourself in a cloud to protect us from Your glory. And thanks that we'll see You face to face one day.