This is part of my year-long series exploring human-centered alternatives to the spiritual promises in Oswald Chambers’ classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest. Today’s entry, “What Do You See in Your Clouds?” promises that clouds of sorrow, suffering, and difficult providence are signs of God’s presence, claiming that “sadness and bereavement and suffering are the clouds that come along with God” and that believers should interpret life’s mysteries in light of their knowledge of God’s character, finding Him alone in their darkest circumstances.
Here’s what trusting that suffering represents divine presence and God’s teaching through clouds actually delivered:
“Clouds are the dust of our Father’s feet,” Pastor Williams declared with spiritual conviction. “Sadness and bereavement and suffering are the clouds that come along with God. These aren’t accidents—they’re signs that He is here. You must learn to interpret the mysteries of life in light of God’s character. Get to the place where there is no one besides Jesus in your cloud.”
Maria had been devastated when her eight-year-old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. The promise that this suffering was a cloud representing God’s presence, and that she should find divine meaning in this darkness rather than questioning God’s character, seemed like the faithful response to incomprehensible tragedy.
Maria desperately wanted to believe that her daughter’s cancer had divine purpose and represented God’s closeness. Instead of focusing solely on evidence-based treatment options, support groups for families facing childhood cancer, and practical caregiving strategies, she tried to interpret this “cloud” as God teaching her something, seeking to simplify her relationship to Him alone rather than relying on other people for emotional support.
For months, Maria isolated herself from hospital social workers and parent support networks, believing that turning to other people instead of God alone showed insufficient faith in His presence through suffering. When concerned friends offered practical help like meal trains, childcare, or simply listening, she declined, convinced that finding anyone besides Jesus in her cloud would only make it darker.
But the promised divine presence through suffering clouds was psychological breakdown disguised as spiritual intimacy.
Maria’s attempts to find God’s character in her daughter’s cancer created additional spiritual torment on top of medical trauma. The simplified relationship with God that suffering was supposed to produce remained absent while her mental health deteriorated and her daughter needed more practical support than spiritual interpretation could provide. The divine presence that clouds of bereavement were supposed to reveal never materialized when she needed comfort most.
Meanwhile, Maria’s hospital roommate neighbor Carmen approached her own son’s leukemia diagnosis with zero expectation that suffering represented divine presence or teaching. When Carmen faced the same devastating diagnosis, she immediately joined parent support groups, utilized hospital social services, and focused entirely on evidence-based treatment while building a comprehensive community support network.
Carmen didn’t search for God’s character in her child’s cancer but treated pediatric leukemia as a medical crisis requiring professional intervention and extensive human support. Her resilience came through oncology expertise, family therapy, and gradually building coping strategies through sustained community care rather than spiritual isolation seeking divine meaning in suffering.
When Maria finally sought similar support services, she discovered that healthy crisis navigation required understanding medical realities and building human support networks rather than trusting that suffering clouds represented divine presence requiring spiritual interpretation.
Where was God coming with the clouds that her daughter’s cancer was supposed to represent? Where was the divine character that should be revealed through looking the “darkest, most atrocious fact in the face” without questioning?
The strength that actually helped came through accepting the randomness of childhood cancer and focusing on evidence-based treatment with community support, not through believing that suffering represented divine presence requiring spiritual interpretation. The silence where God was supposed to be walking in the clouds revealed the truth: there was no divine figure using tragedy to teach spiritual lessons or demonstrate His presence.
Only medical conditions and family crises that required professional understanding and human community to navigate successfully.
Reflection Question: When has treating suffering as random tragedy requiring human support been more healing than searching for God’s presence and teaching in life’s darkest clouds?
This story is part of my upcoming book “The Undevoted: Daily Departures from Divine Dependence,” which offers 365 human-centered alternatives to the spiritual certainties in Chambers’ devotional. Each day explores how reason, community, and human resilience can address life’s challenges without requiring divine intervention.
God or Delusion? 