WVOV Radio

CAMERA

Psalm 147:4-5. He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit. (NIV)

Cameras have come a long way over the last few years. From black and white to color. From film to digital. And from waiting weeks to get your pictures back to instant printing. But the more amazing thing is what you can do with a photograph now.

I’m taking a couple of classes in photography this semester at the local community college. One is an introduction to photography and the other is Photoshop. Photoshop is the computer program that allows you to manipulate your photos in almost any way you want. You can resize them and add or remove elements in the picture. You can even change the colors that make up the photograph. The instructor showed us a picture he had taken of our local muddy river and turned it into clear blue waters. It was that picture that really got me to thinking.

The question that came to my mind was when does a picture stop being a picture and become a photograph. We know the camera takes a picture of exactly what is there. Warts and all. As we say, pictures don’t lie. But photographs are different now. They can be doctored. With the sweep of a computer mouse we can take away the flaws and create the perfect picture. But that’s when the picture becomes a photograph. It’s not real.

We’re like that sometimes. We want to become the photograph rather than the picture. We want people to see what we want them to see and nothing else. It might work like that in Photoshop. It might even work like that for a while in real life. We can hide a lot of flaws from others. But we hide nothing from God. The Psalmist says he knows the number of the stars and he calls them by name and his understanding has no limit. That means when he looks at us he sees us as we are. Just like a camera. We don’t get to run our lives through Photoshop before God gets to take a look.

I think that’s a point worth noting. When heaven and earth pass away and we stand before God, the only picture that’ll be important is the one that he has captured of our lives. And it’ll be a picture, not a photograph. It will be accurate in every detail, including the flaws and blemishes. But God will not judge us as people so often do. He’ll judge our hearts. He’ll know what we look like on the inside. And for those of us who aren’t so photogenic, that’s a comforting thought. When it comes to my life, I’m glad God holds the camera.