The cloud

In Acts 1, we read of Jesus ascending to the father in the cloud.

It's not just your usual water particle cloud. See, a cloud in the Old Testament was often a symbol of the presence of God. Mount Sinai was enshrouded in mist when Moses went up to meet with the Lord. A cloud pillar guided the Isrealites in the desert by day.

Jesus is returning to the Father. He is returning to His eternal, heavenly home, which He had left for us (Phil 2:5-7). He had longed for this moment, but didn't leave His disciples without promising an even sweeter deal for them ("it is good for you that I go away...): the Holy Spirit would be given mere days later at Pentecost.

A cloud signifies God's presence in the eyes of the early disciples. They would have thought of Daniel 7:13-14 where Daniel prophesies of the Son of Man "coming with the clouds" to the Throne room and being given a dominion and an everlasting kingdom. Maybe Daniel is describing the Ascension. Maybe the disciples remembered that passage.

What does the cloud symbolize to our generation? A digital place to store your life. In our day and age, the cloud is where we store our data, our photos, our memories. It's a "safe" place that replaces our need for memory. It's where we store our life, digitally. I would suspect the cloud is becoming increasingly indispensable to our daily living.

What if we started going to God's presence as easily as we go to the cloud? What if we viewed His presence as vital as we do the digital cloud?

How would your life be different if you truly lived in the constant awareness of His presence?