“Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, and you waters above the heavens!… For He commanded and they were created… Praise the LORD from the earth,… fire and hail, snow and clouds…” Psalm 148:4, 5, 7

Fog

Fog, like mushy air, met my morning horizon gaze. Fog is my least favorite weather phenomenon, and yet it no doubt serves God’s purposes, for He has created it.

All my life, I haven’t liked anything mushy—even the air. I never liked the milk toast my grandma used to serve me. I don’t pour milk on my morning cereal until the moment I am ready to eat it. I’ve never been fond of gravy on my biscuits.

Fog greets us in so many different ways. Maybe you can relate. When waking from surgery anesthesia, I sense the fog of swimming back into reality, as I work hard to focus on voices and meanings of words. When I have too many decisions to make, no choices are clear, similar to when looking at a tree across the street in the fog. When I receive bad news, I can’t think about anything except that one, horrible thing—as if I am driving into the fog where nothing is discernible except what is right in front of me. When I am without hope and living in despair, it is as if I can’t come in out of the damp, pervading chill. Whether I am in real fog, mental fog, or emotional fog, nothing looks as it should.

The warm, bright sun burns that fog away. It doesn’t take long for the trees across the street to come into focus again, looking just like they are supposed to look. Anesthesia wears off. Decisions are made, with or without me, and that foggy uncertainty dissipates. Pain-fog will be healed, sooner or later. Hope is restored by God’s promises and the work of His Spirit.

Let’s admit it, sometimes we are also in spiritual fog. Our spiritual focus can disintegrate into mush. Many things can become unclear—God’s Word can seem to be “just words.” We might be praying in a fog—unclear what we should pray for, or how we should pray. We might attempt to worship while in a fog—our minds just go off to try to settle a problem, or we keep replaying the words that hurt us, or we rehearse our grocery list.

Just as the sun burns off actual fog, developing intimacy with the Son of God burns away the spiritual fog. I pray that we would have clear thinking when it comes to the things of God. I pray that we would have intense focus on heavenly things that matter, things that last, things that transform us. I pray that we would watch for His coming and listen for His Word every day, to keep the spiritual fog at bay.

“Bring us out of our spiritual fog, our mental fog, our emotional fog, O Father, that we may clearly see what You would show us. Amen.”