On Saturday I spent 8 hours in the baking sun watching SA play Pakistan in Centurion. Supersport Park has mostly a grass seating area, and so we parked on camping chairs with the cooler box and lots of sunscreen and just soaked up dangerous amounts of UV rays for hours. Apart from a few patches that the sunscreen avoided I managed to come out with all my skin intact…

I must admit though that at times it was suffocatingly hot. Thankfully those Northerns guys had provided an ‘irrigation tunnel’, which is basically a sprinkler system mounted on a steel frame, that you could walk through and get soaked by cold water. Of course we only visited this feature during breaks in play (gotta watch every ball…) so there was still a lot of time spent in the now humid heat (thanks to soaked T-shirts).

The refreshment of that tunnel got me thinking about a verse I came across, from the book of Jude. It speaks about Christians who are not real believers although they claim to be, leading other Christians astray. Jude refers to them as “waterless clouds” (verse 12).

That’s quite a damning label to paste on a Christian. Because a cloud is something that promises rain, thereby promising life to dry land, refreshment for parched throats and a breezy touch to a hot day (when watching cricket in 34 degree heat…). A waterless cloud promises something that it is not, parades as something that it is not and inspires hope in giving with nothing to give.

Christians can be like that. They can pretend to be something they’re not. They can appear beautiful like clouds in a drought but actually have nothing to give. These are the people Jude was writing against.

In the beginning of the letter he describes what’s really at the core of these people, comparing them to Cain and Balaam, both noted for their greed. Interestingly Balaam is not only noted for greed but for his using prophecy to feed the greed. He also refers to Sodom and Gomorrah, whose people were infamous in their sexual immorality, and to Korah who led a rebellion against Moses.

All of these people behaved in a manner that satisfied lust of the flesh, or as Jude puts it “walked according to their lust” (verse 16 & 18). Sensual living, living according to animal instincts (or “brute beasts” as in verse 10).

I definitely want to live my life as a cloud that brings a lot of rain and nourishment and hope and refreshment. I would hate the label of being a waterless cloud. But I have to admit that I fall into the sensuality trap quite often. You see sensual living isn’t only about lust and greed, it can also be seemingly smaller things like overindulgence or even mocking or making fun out of others. It’s when life is all about the pleasures of me. The life of someone who would have the effect of a real cloud would be a life lived for another.

I think we always need to be challenged and reminded about what life is about, that it’s not about me, but about another, another I’m sure we know well. But are our clouds really brimming with refreshment and nourishment and hope and life? I want my life to be like that this year. But I know the only way it’s going to happen is a work of grace by God in me.

I guess at the end of the day it will be easy to tell whether this has happened or not. I’ll just ask the question: ‘Did I live my life satisfying my every desire, or did I live giving life to others?’.

It’s a tough question, one that’s really hard to live out. But when I think of that irrigation tunnel and what relief it was…

Posted by Rich on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 15:05 and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.