Life is not like the Picture

When you choose a picture to represent yourself to the world (like in Facebook) what do you pick?  My guess is that it would be one of the following: 

• your best, current shot
• something funny
• something memorable

If you look on my Facebook or even the few pics on this website, you're going to find what I have just described.  You will never see the photo shoots of moments where I was bottomed out or in despair.  And yes, I have been there...  I guess it's mainly because the thought never occurred to me that it might have been a moment to capture.  As I wept in front of my brother & his wife's caskets, I didn't think to 'take a picture'.  In the horror of my dad's death, the thought of getting the camera never entered my mind.  When good friends rejected me, I didn't ask them to stop & pose... Those were moments I didn't want to frame and wished never happened.  Scenes I'd rather forget.

Life is not like the picture.  A picture remembers what we have chosen to.

That's why I love reading what David has to say in the Psalms.  I can totally relate!!  He wrote about the stuff in between the photo-shoots!

Psalm 39:4, 5b
"Lord, make me know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am... certainly every man at his best state is but a vapour."

When David was down, he cried to God for help.  When he fell, he begged for mercy and forgiveness.  And yeah, he whined and cursed a bit too, but he always seemed to pull around to submission, worship & even happy praise to God.  He knew Who made him and who needed the makeover!  With David, we tend to see it all.  We not only see the picture and the accompanying movie, we get to go behind the scenes. 

That's just the way it is with God.  He sees it all before we do.  In fact, He always sees more than we do.  Our lives are details in constant motion & contact with others.  Every scene of every moment is us interacting with others.  The actual picture contains way more than what we can even fathom...

God's love does not fluctuate with the quality of the shot.  He sees the beginning from the end and everything in between, continually fashioning the willing soul to the destiny He has designed for them.  That's what God sees.  That's what He has posted on His fridge.  He wants us to see that too.