GOD'S HAND ~ Alexis A. Goring ~ Devotional

God’s Hand

A devotional by Alexis A. Goring

“Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.
    Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you.
    I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.”

– Isaiah 41:10 [NLT]

There’s a term that I learned with a technique that I applied when I was a photography student that still stands out to me years after my college class.

Image courtesy pixabay.com

The term is called “dodging and burning.” I’ll explain it later but first, for those of you who may not know, let me explain the old standards and practices of photography. Much of today’s photography is digital but before it became the standard, photographers developed all ttheir pictures in what’s called a darkroom.

There in the (literal) dark, they meticulously removed the roll of negatives (the film inside their manual cameras on which the pictures were taken) and carefully started the process of developing the negatives into what we see as “prints” or “pictures” today.

The process of developing photos manually in the old-fashioned way takes a lot of patience and skill. If you expose your negatives to the light before they’re fully developed your pictures are ruined. Even if you still try to develop the prints, you won’t see anything on the film because the bright light (be it fluorescent or natural from the sun) destroyed the photos, which is why photographs needed to be developed carefully in a darkroom. It is literally a dark room with special lights that are only bright enough for you to see what you’re doing but not bright enough to ruin your film.

Now here’s the part about the term “dodging and burning” and the technique used. First, let’s look at the definition of this term. According to Adobe.com, “The Dodge tool and the Burn tool lighten or darken areas of the image. These tools are based on a traditional darkroom technique for regulating exposure on specific areas of a print. Photographers hold back light to lighten an area on the print (dodging) or increase the exposure to darken areas on a print (burning).”

Let’s talk about the technique. When Adobe.com says that there is a “Dodge tool” and a “Burn tool” used in this technique, it’s referring to digital photography where you edit photos on your computer and use those digital tools to accomplish your vision for the photographs.

But before digital photography became so popular and widely used, photographers in the darkroom used a special light and their own hands to perform the action of dodging and burning a photo.

Years ago, I realized that there is spiritual symbolism and metaphor in this professional practice because, just like the photographer skillfully guides his or her hand over a photo to produce the desired outcome, the Creator of the Universe (God) also uses His Hand to direct our life!

Only God is better than any human photographer and His end results are always the best for us! Maybe not perfect because of the state of the world we live in but perfectly tailored to fit our lives and lead us to Him, which then ultimately results in us being saved in His Kingdom when we make the choice to accept God’s Son (Jesus Christ) and follow Him.

Just like a photographer in the darkroom gently and skillfully moves his or her hands under the special light that hovers over the film in order to either lighten or darken certain areas of the photo they’re developing, our Maker (God) has His hand over our life. We only need to be still and trust Him as He uses His hand to shed light on the areas of our life that He wants to work on with us. Sometimes, He may allow the darkness in parts of our life to help us draw close to Him and trust Him to see us through.

God is in the restoration business! What He doesn’t restore in our life during our time living on planet Earth, He will restore when our eternal life starts in Heaven! The Bible says when we make it to Heaven, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4, ESV).

But for now, as we experience trials and tribulations on Earth, it is important to seek God while He may be found (Isaiah 55:6-7) and trust Him to use His Hand over our lives to produce the end result that again, may not be picture perfect in our eyes, but is perfect for the work He’s doing within us. Pastor Rick Warren says, “God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.”

Now this isn’t to say God wants your life to be miserable! No! Quite the opposite. God wants to fill your mind with His perfect peace (Philippians 4:7), bless your heart with His Love (1 John 4:16) and enrich Your life with His Presence (Psalm 16:11)!

So won’t you trust His Hand to move over your life (in fact, it already is), to work out all the details to not only sustain you but to bless you?

There’s a song by Marvin Sapp called “He Has His Hands On You.” The song lyrics basically say that even when uncomfortable things happen to you and don’t feel good, you can take solace in the fact that as long as you’re in God’s hands, everything is going to be okay.

The Bible says that God works out everything for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). So when life hits hard and the storms of life roll in, making it difficult to see a safe end, just lean into God and trust Him to see you through. Remember, God’s Hand is on you!

Alexis A. Goring is a passionate writer with a degree in Print Journalism and an MFA in Creative Writing. She loves the art of storytelling and hopes her stories will connect readers with the enduring, forever love of Jesus Christ.