Joni Mitchell, the 60s folk singer, looked at clouds from both sides – ice cream castles in the air and the many things she would have done but clouds got in her way – and concluded she really didn’t know clouds at all.

The World Meteorological Organization says, “A cloud is a hydrometeor consisting of minute particles of liquid water or ice, or of both, suspended in the atmosphere and usually not touching the ground.” I’m sure that is a fine definition, but it really doesn’t help me know clouds at all.

The photo was taken from our backyard. Earlier in the week Becky and I were enjoying the late afternoon on the back patio and the clouds in the Midwestern sky were more of the ice cream castle sort.  By midnight they were bringing rain and thunder and lightning on everyone.  Yes, both sides of clouds.  If I look at clouds by the standard of ice cream castles in the air or things that get in my way, I suppose I cannot really know clouds at all.

But what if I am not the measure of all things?  What if clouds, like all things in the created order, point to the Creator (Romans 1:20)?  What if we are meant to catch in the creation a glimpse of some of his attributes, his eternal power and divine nature, as the Apostle writes?

Clouds heavy with rain can get in the way of a morning bike ride or an afternoon picnic.  Or light and fluffy, they can dance through the sky as we enjoy the warmth of a late spring day. The Psalmist reminds us that even gray and gloomy clouds teach us about God:

Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving;
make melody to our God on the lyre!
He covers the heavens with clouds;
he prepares rain for the earth;
he makes grass grow on the hills. Psalm 147:7–8 (ESV)

Clouds laden with rain and thunder and lightning point to a God who cares for his creation. Dancing clouds point to a God who is filled with joy and loves beauty.

In the old song, Joni Mitchell goes on to sing of her experience with both sides of love and life and concludes it was a delusion and that she really doesn’t know love and life at all.

But the God who reveals his eternal power through the created order reveals what we are to know about love and life through the gift of his son, the story told in the pages of Scripture.

In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis writes about what we can and cannot know about God through watching the clouds and enjoying the created order, “Our real journey to God involves constantly turning our backs on her; passing from the dawn-lit fields into some pokey little church (where Scripture is preached), or, it might be, going to work in an East End parish.”

And then he adds, “But the love of (nature) has been a valuable and, for some people, indispensable initiation.” Yes.

I can look at “hydrometeors consisting of minute particles of liquid water or ice” from every side and still not know clouds at all.  But Jesus tells us that if we look to him we will see the Father, as well. (John 14:9) It’s not a delusion; we really can know God.