It feels like there are always clouds in Wales. They’re like over-zealous gardeners, watering their patch with fluffy white watering cans. In Psalm 36.5 the poet writes, ‘your steadfast love extends to the heavens, your faithfulness extends to the clouds’.
But what if you’re above the clouds? Are you disqualified? All of a sudden, God’s faithfulness doesn’t feel like such good news for pilots, Everest climbers or Swiss mountain goats.
Thankfully, it’s not meant to be understood literally. Psalms are stacked with metaphor, simile and parallelism – framing truth through the lens of poetic imagery.
‘Your faithfulness extends to the clouds’ is like saying, ‘Your faithfulness, God, is higher than I can possibly reach.’ If I were to paraphrase today I’d say something like, ‘Your constant compassion carries to the constellations, your faithfulness goes further than SpaceX on rocket fuel.’
His faithfulness is not measured by feeling or circumstance; it’s measured by the constant unchanging reality that he is who he says he is and he says that he is faithful.
He is faithful. Even when it feels like he’s not.
His faithfulness to those who know him is vast – immeasurable and unquantifiable. We cannot comprehend just how faithful he is. And it gets better. He’s not just faithful when we are. He’s faithful even when we’re not; he’s faithful because we are not. His faithfulness extends beyond the limits of what we know and see, it extends to our rebellion-filled hearts, it extends to the cross and bursts out of the empty tomb.
As clouds appear, may we be soaked with a greater understanding of the reconciling silver lining of his faithfulness.
This reflection was written by spoken word artist Dai Woolridge, who is a Bible Communicator and Creative Specialist at Bible Society.
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