Clouds without water

I am reading through Jude one more time before I go on to another book to study. Jude: almost lost in the Johns. Jude: short and sweet and hard to beat. Jude: full of little phrases with great meaning . Clouds without water!

When we were kids we used to lie on the ground and watch the clouds. We saw animals, cars, trucks and the innocence of nothing to do but find cloud formations is an art long passed by. What I do remember was when we needed rain: badly. We would search those skies for something that would be the promise of rain: a cloud. Elijah saw a cloud as small as a mans fist and had the joy of a deluge. Clouds equate to many things and rain is one of them.

Obviously I am not the only enamored by the phrase. In 1909 Aleister Crowley wrote a book called Clouds without Water. It’s a collected or poetry. Jude 1:12 is where it’s found.

“These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted —twice dead.”
Jude 1:12

I reread this morning and paused long enough to wonder if I was one of those people. This phrase is a contradiction. Empty promises, trees that promising bud but don’t fruit up. Bushes that have lots of green but nothing else. All talk and no action. People who do things to accomplish something for personal gain but it values no one else! Clouds without water! Water equates life. In the Bible water reflected the life of God. Water is important. Also important it to have a bucket without holes to carry the water to where it can be most useful. Watering the lawn and having holes in your hose , you may water the driveway more than you water the lawn! Been there done that. Having holes in the bucket might get some water but your effort is wasted as most of its running out the bottom of the bucket. I need to be a person who is full of water and can us easily get it where it’s needed. Sometimes we get side tracked by life and put our bucket of water down only to have the neighbor hood dogs drink out of our water bucket and ruin it. Be a cloud that brings refreshing rain on other and if you are a bucket, make sure you keep it in proper condition so it can be of a blessing to those who need water.

Hosea 6:3

Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. ”
Hosea 6:3