SHAPED BY DARKNESS?---To look at the photograph, the viewer couldn’t distinguish the difference between the mountain and the sky. The beauty of what was physically present had become lost by being falsely represented. This was Ansel Adams’s struggle. As he labored to photograph Yosemite’s granite monolith through his famous black and white photography, he discovered that the sky and the granite both ended up blending together as shades of grey—until he radically chose to photograph things with an unconventional filter. The beauty of the granite monolith could only be seen in his photographs when the sky was turned black through the use of a red filter. There is no denying that darkness reveals things—even in our lives. But what does darkness reveal? It can reveal where we are looking and how we are seeing. For example, when the army surrounded the city and came to take down Elisha, his servant was quite aware of the prevailing darkness that seemed to encompass them (2 Kings 6:8-23). And the servant, seeing the darkness in such great abundance, despaired and asked (hopelessly, I think), “What shall we do?” He seemed to believe that he could do nothing. Now that thought was probably true. Like all of us, this servant—when surrounded by darkness and evil—could do nothing on his own or even with the assistance of his friend. Obviously, the servant let the view of all the evil around him blend into his seeing of everything and overtake the view. Everything had become tainted by the darkness, and all was now at least grey—fairly hopelessly grey. However, his master and friend, Elisha, saw differently. He had a different filter and saw things as they actually were—not just as they seemed to be. Elisha spoke peace to his servant (since Elisha knew and walked in heaven’s peace in that place), providing an option not to fear in the midst of such accumulated evidence of doom. And Elisha then spoke simply to the God he knew and served, asking for more of what Elisha already experienced—“Open my servant’s eyes that he may see.” The faulty filter was shifted; the veil was lifted. The servant could now see the greater forces of light surrounding the forces of darkness—like Elisha did. And the threat of the darkness dissipated. Elisha was, as he had always been, undeterred by surrounding forces of evil and actively walking in the light. And the light that Elisha knew actually blinded the army, allowing Elisha—one man PLUS GOD–to take full command of the situation, the army, and its surprising, future treatment (which was, again, just like heaven would do things—give the enemy a feast!) . Amazing what one man who knew The Light could be free enough to do. Darkness may be increasing in this world. But we are not people of darkness. We are people of The Light—and our Light has come (Isaiah 60:1). The darkness is only here to reveal the light we carry. So we are now to SHINE. We have never been meant to have our lives and our agendas and our thoughts and emotions shaped by the darkness—limited and restricted by the darkness. We are to be people shaped by The Light. And today, we choose to let His light shape us, our thoughts, our agendas, and our identity—we choose to shine in this world. To subscribe to this devotional go to restlesschipotle/lindahoyer/ restlesschipotle/lindahoyer/2014/03/12/shaped-by-darkness/
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 11:42:19 +0000
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