One of my 2018 resolutions is to read the Bible from cover to cover. So far I’ve gotten past the first chapter of Genesis. Yay, progress! But I’ve been thinking about God’s first words: “Let there be light.”

The light & dark metaphor is my favorite of all time. It goes beyond Darths and Jedis and to me is the symbolism that captures this whole story of humanity. God’s first words spoke light. But this world is so damn dark. What the what?

I once worked for someone who had a collection of prized bulls. I would go out to his ranch and photograph animals worth tens of thousands of dollars and often he’d ask me to improve the pictures in photoshop before they went on the website. Whether there was someone in the background, or the grass was too dry and brown, I worked my magic but at first I would stare at the picture and realized how fake it looked. After some time it occurred to me what was missing – the shadows. The eye instinctively sensed a problem.

Without the shadows, it just didn’t seem real.

Over the past couple of months I’ve been researching cameras and talking in detail to my patient wife about ISO, aperture, and sensors. I was thinking today about what makes an expensive camera so expensive and it’s about the shadows. An advanced camera has higher range of what it can record at the bright and dark end of the spectrum. In essence, it sees more in the shadows.

By contrast (no pun intended), cheaper cameras will sooner just give up and record black instead of seeing details or shades of darkness.

I’ve been a cheap camera Christian at times just seeing shadows and a black abyss to be avoided or to throw light at with a flash – bright and honest but immediately overtaken again. But Jesus looked at the darkness and He saw the details. He ate with those in shadow, He was judged for talking to them and in the end He took on all our darkness. God turned away and He died in the shadows. And yet…

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” – John 8:12

I carry my faith in Christ like a lit candle in this dark world. I feel in me the urge to peer into the shadows to find those who God wants to shine upon. I ignore this feeling nearly every day and choose to count them as lost.

I want to be like an expensive camera that can see deeper into darkness I am too quick to overlook.

I want to be honest and admit that I have shadows following me around too.

I want show you the light that leads me.