You Can't Climb the Clouds

No matter how much they stand as a testament to divine architecture, these divine skycrapers will drop the foot of its first climber. No matter how much you stare from your airplane seat at 30,000 feet and begin to truly think that these colossal marshmallows actually maintain some sort of structural integrity suitable for the fleshy pads we stand on, the clouds will reinforce the foolishness of a climb with the insult of death. And no matter how much they seductively stare back, tempting man with the most spectacular of all rock-climbing opportunities, their end guarantee remains only failure and fatality. For all of their light, beauty and jagged edges masquerading as foot-holes, clouds are liars, visually promising a glorious scale, but not even offering an anchor for your harness.

You can't climb the clouds.

And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Cor. 11)

I call shenanigans. Satan must be in cahoots with the clouds, teaching them their lying ways. Only, perhaps they have not learned as well as he yet. Oh yes, the clouds are liars, offering the sham of climbing its slopes to its aeroplane-bound onlookers, but one mistake they make: they will not hold your foot even for a second.

You see, Satan will hold your foot. In fact, he is a master of deceptive foot-holds, allowing you to grasp the rock-face of your sin and begin to climb. Don't worry - the steps will hold. And hold they will until you have grasped each vice, pulling yourself up to the pinnacle of this boulder of evil - a peak that promised you satisfaction, acceptance, joy, and love by means of your own self-glorification. But when you get to this peak, you find that this boulder is more like a cloud, and it lets you go as soon as you realize your foot-holds were always a fluffy, bright, beautiful illusion.

You can't climb the clouds.

And as you fall to your shameful and utter failure, you hear these words:

While I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eyes shall close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See thee on thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee. 

This Rock of Ages, this risen Jesus, this Mountain of Shelter with a place carved just for you in its face, can catch you in your descent. And in catching you, it promises something better than foot-holds and dangerously deceptive climbs: to "soar to worlds unknown." 

You can't climb the clouds. But you can fly over them if you want to.

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