The Darkroom

When I was in college back in the eighties, we had photography class that taught us how to take great pictures. We took photos under broad daylight pointing at various subjects from portraits to landscapes, and from still life to moving objects. There were also subjects taken at night like city lights and moving lights. The images, however, were all captured in a roll of film hidden inside my camera. During those days, the technology has not yet evolved to the digital age. Therefore, digital computer images were not yet in existence. And don’t try to count back and calculate my age either!

To develop photographs, the film must be taken into a darkroom. Only after the chemicals have done their work in the dark is it safe to expose the negatives to light and produce the final prints. The light, which would have destroyed the film, now brings out the beauty within the film.

In the same way, God takes us through “darkroom” experiences to develop our spiritual life. Many factors contribute to our developing process and are considered the chemicals that work on us while in the darkroom. Trials, disappointments, frustrations, and sorrow prepare us in the process. As we pass through all these, the image of Christ is produced in us. Only then we are ready to be displayed in the light.

Whenever we go through our dark tunnels of despair and frustration, we often blame people or circumstances. Although they may be the secondary causes, we need to realize that the hand of the heavenly Father momentarily shades the light from our pathway. He graciously takes us through such experiences because He wants to provide us the benefits of darkness; the way photographs are developed in the darkroom. So when it comes to life’s trials and frustrations, do you consider yourself inside God’s darkroom? If so, what would your response be? There are incidents when we question God’s presence or motive at times of adversity. If there is really a God, why am I suffering like this? Why does He allow bad things happen to such good people? For whatever reason, His ways are not our ways. And there is no doubt whatever He is doing; rest assured it is always to our best advantage. The only difference is the angle of how we look at it. After spending some time in the dark, then you will learn to appreciate the light even more.

Do not despair for God is developing the beauty of Christlikeness within you for display in His art gallery of eternity. Do not seek to get back into the light too soon. “The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.” Lamentations 3: 25-26 (KJV). You must wait for His perfect timing or you’ll spoil the imprint of His love on the film of your life!

Bible passage to read: Lamentations 3:1-6; 22-26

“GOD TAKES US INTO HIS DARKROOM

TO DEVELOP US INTO HIS LIKENESS”

Seeing Or Remembering?

There’s this story of a man who was slowly losing his memory. After an examination, the doctor said that an operation on his brain might reverse his condition and restore his memory. However, there is a risk involved. The surgery would be so delicate that a nerve might be severed, causing total blindness. “What would you rather have,” the doctor asked the patient, “your sight or your memory?”

In such life’s emergency situation where you can only choose either sight or memory, which one for you is more valuable? If you were the man in this condition, what would you choose? To have your sight retained to go on living, or your memory? You have all what you’ve got in the past with your memory. Your sight will keep you in the light. But sometimes, in order to see the light you have to risk the dark. And often, those who have never experienced darkness at some point in their lives do not appreciate the light. If I were in the shoes of this man, I probably would take a lot of time to put things in consideration before making my final call.

But this man pondered only for just a few moments and then replied, “I’d prefer to have my sight because I would rather see where I am going than remember where I have been.” Why? Is the future more interesting than the past? Does this man mean he do not want any of his past remembered?

In Philippians 3, the apostle Paul made the same choice spiritually. His past, with both its success and shame, he chose to forget. What mattered to him most was keeping his eyes on the goal of gaining Christ’s approval. It is what we call the priceless gain of knowing Christ. In this chapter, Paul expressed about how successful he was in the beginning being a real Jew. His achievements included being a member of the Pharisees who demanded the strictest obedience of the Jewish law. So strict he was, in fact, he persecuted the church and obeyed the Jewish law so carefully he was never accused of any fault. To the apostle Paul, before he became a follower of Christ, those things were so very important until the time he had to travel from Jerusalem to Damascus to track down the fleeing Christians and bring them back for execution (Acts 9). That was when Saul, the persecutor, became Paul. Since his conversion, everything else was worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ and became one with Him. Anyway, Paul had reason to turn his back on his past and choose not to remember them.

We all have done things for which we are ashamed of. And still there is this tension in our life of what we have been and who we wanted to be. Since our hope is in Christ, we can let go of the past guilt and look forward to growing in the knowledge of God by concentrating on our relationship with Him. We are forgiven. When we confess our sins, they are buried in the deepest seas. Let’s not dredging them up. Therefore, we can move on to a life of faith and obedience. That kind of mindset is one sure mark of Christian maturity. “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you (Philippians 3:13-15).

We can’t forget our past, of course, but certainly we do not have to live in it either. Surely we cannot change what has passed. And our past is what made us who we are. Any good we may have done is from God, so we can only be thankful. Like the Apostle Paul, his goal was to know Christ, be like Christ. This is a good example for us – not allowing anything to take our eyes off our goal, which is to know Christ. But if you are like that man who had to undergo a brain surgery and make a choice between sight and memory, you must really have a valid reason for choosing sight rather than memory, or vise versa. So finally, what would be your choice? Do you prefer to see or to remember?

Bible passage to read: Philippians 3:12-21

"WE CAN'T CHANGE OUR PAST.

WE DON'T HAVE TO LIVE IN IT EITHER."