Posts Tagged: picture and text
“WHEN GOD ISN’T IN THE PICTURE”
I receive a daily e mail from Loyola Press entitled “3-Minute Retreat.” (You may access today’s meditation at http://www.loyolapress.com/retreats/like-sheep-with-a-shepherd-start-retreat, accessed 06-01-2017.) Each meditation has a brief passage from the Bible, a few thought-provoking comments, a couple of questions, and a closing prayer. It also has a background picture.
The Scripture today was Luke 12:32. “Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.”
Part of the comment from the author of this meditation is as follows: “We are created and sustained by a loving God, on whom we depend as sheep on a shepherd. With our generous God as shepherd, we have no more reason to fear.”
Luke 12:32 is a wonderfully comforting and energizing verse, and the comment was right on target. However, it was the juxtaposition with the background picture that especially struck me this morning. There is no shepherd anywhere in the picture!
And that is the way feels most of the time, isn’t it? God seems very absent from our daily lives. There is grass, sky, hill, other sheep, but no Shepherd.
However, neither cameras nor our eyes can catch all that is there. God is indeed working in our lives, though we rarely suspect it. He is indeed pleased to give us his kingdom.
In the background picture, one sheep out of the approximately fifty-seven sheep is looking directly at the camera. Most of the time, I am like the fifty-six. I’m eating, looking at other sheep, and doing whatever else it is that we human sheep do.
Perhaps the person who is taking the picture is the shepherd. Perhaps our Great Shepherd is taking the picture that we call “our lives”. Perhaps we are the subject of God’s shutter art. Perhaps God is too humble to be very obviously present in our lives.
It may be that you and I could choose to look up every once in a while, and look in the direction of the One who is taking the picture.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
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