Chasing shade

I’m not a big fan of sun.

For a fifth-generation Floridian, that probably sounds as strange as saying I don’t like citrus fruit (which I don’t).

But I was born with the Snow-White-Scarlett-O’Hara skin that either freckles or burns which means one thing: sunscreen.

I HATE sunscreen. It’s a hassle to put on and it’s sticky and you have to keep putting it on over and over. So it’s not really the SUN I don’t like. It’s the sunscreen, which is a non-negotiable for a fair-skinned person like myself.

Also, in case you don’t live down here, it’s just so dang hot in the summer. When I’m outside, I feel like I spend most of my time looking for shade and trying to stay in it.

I’ve been a Florida resident my entire life, so I really thought I understood sun, heat and the importance of shade.

Then I went to Israel.

There is almost no water anywhere. In Florida, you can’t drive five minutes without seeing a pond, a lake, a river or an ocean. In Israel, they get about two inches of rain per year. PER YEAR.

No rain means no humidity (and dry heat is supposed to be better, for some reason?). No rain means no LIFE. Most of the land we saw was barren desert. No trees, no bushes, no green. Just brown, beige, tan and gray.

And no clouds. I think I saw two clouds in ten days. Seriously. And they were tiny.

For most of the trip, I did okay. The sun was strong, but it stayed in the 80s, which is very doable for a Floridian.

But the last three days, you guys. The last three days, the temperature hovered around 105. And it was the most oppressive heat I have ever felt.

I remember sitting in the delicious air conditioning of the bus, looking out the window at our next stop and wondering if it was worth getting off, walking about 30 yards to the shade and seeing whatever it was to see.

I did get off the bus and actually ran to the shade. The heat actually HURT.

The imagery in the Bible took on a whole new meaning.

I suddenly understood why Jonah threw such a fit when God killed the plant that was giving him shade. (Well, he was already in a bad mood. But that didn’t help.)

Like a slave longing for the evening shadows… rest in the shadow of the Almighty… like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land… in the shadow of His hand He hid me… I sing in the shadow of Your wings…

The Lord is your shade at your right hand… You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat… People will dwell again in His shade; they will flourish like the grain, they will blossom like the vine…

I remember how often I sit in my air conditioned life, surrounded by limitless running water and thinking that the Hebrews were such weenies as Moses was leading through the desert to the Promised Land.

Not anymore.

No wonder they wanted to go back to Egypt. After the Red Sea incident, there was no water. No food. No options. Their only hope was that this God they barely knew would come through for them and care for them. And they were literally at His mercy.

If I put myself in their shoes, I would have been terrified. Looking around and seeing nothing but sand for miles. Watching my kids, too big to carry, growing weary, asking me for water and not being able to give them any.

And to be sure, He WAS merciful. He provided water from rocks, manna from heaven, quail when they got sick of manna. But He was literally their only hope for survival. And He was teaching them to trust Him, to trust His love, to trust His promises.

All they could see was a cloud.

By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Exodus 13:21

The cloud of the Lord was over them by day when they set out from the camp. Numbers 10:34

Like I said, there are no clouds in Israel. It’s not like there were partly cloudy skies and they had to figure out which one it was. It was THE CLOUD.

Before I went to Israel, I always pictured a relatively small cloud. Just a signal, something to look at, something to follow.

But now, I wonder.

Nobody knows the exact number of people, but we know it was in the millions. So it’s at LEAST ten Ben Hill Griffin Stadiums. (Sorry. The only way I can picture large groups of people is based on the size of The Swamp.)

Knowing God like I do, knowing His love and tenderness toward His stiff-necked, whiney people. All they had ever known was brutal toil in the sun. They had been mistreated and abused. No doubt they all carried some level of PTSD.

They were afraid. They were confused. They were relieved to no longer be slaves, but they had no idea where they were going or who exactly they were following.

God knows the hearts of all men. He knew what they had been through. He knew their fears. He heard the men thinking, “What have I done? What have I gotten my family into? Striking out into the wilderness with no way to provide for them.” He heard the women thinking, “I have nothing to give my children. If this Moses is wrong and this God doesn’t come through, we will die in this desert. And it wouldn’t take long.”

So I wonder about the cloud. If God provided the cloud for direction, could it have possibly been big enough to cover the entire mass of people? Could the cloud have been over them, as well as ahead of them, so they had to stay under it to stay in the shade? So whichever way the shade moved, they would move to stay in it?

As someone who spends her life chasing shade, even in the cushy life I live, that DEFINITELY would have worked on me. And while there was no food or water to be seen, looking up and seeing a cloud provided by this God for some relief, literally being led by shade, would certainly give me a picture of what kind of God I was following.

God is our refuge, provider, shield, protection. The Hebrews experienced this very literally and I regret all the years I judged their lack of faith.

I will never forget the intensity of that heat and the high premium on shade. It was literally burned into my memory, hopefully forever.

I see clouds and am thankful for them. The rain pours down every summer afternoon and it’s beautiful. Our land is so plentiful that we have to mow our grass and trim back our greenery. We have access to so much food that we have to MAKE ourselves not eat it all. Our homes are so comfortable, most of us don’t move unless we absolutely have to.

God was many things to His chosen people. But maybe one of the most important things He was to them was their shade. They rested in it.

And so should I.