Beyond the Negative

     It is unclear to me whether it were Henry Fox Talbot or Louis Daguerre, or possibly some other unnamed fellow who first transferred a positive image onto paper from a negative.  Henry Fox Talbot is credited with the feat, while his sodium chloride process was not stabilized and the images he printed via contact were fleeting.  Talbot would place plants against paper and brush with the salt solution; he would then expose the paper to light.  The salted portions would darken while the remainder stayed light.  Unfortunately, sodium chloride is not stabilized so the images would often disappear with further exposure to light- like a refiner's fire.  He spent most of his later life in attempts to fix onto paper the beautiful images he observed.  Louis Daguerre's method involved a transfer of an image onto copper with a silver nitrate solution and allowed for reprinting via the copper negative.  

Why does this matter?  Well, I find it no coincidence that God impressed upon two men without acquaintance with each other to realize that photo negatives can be created and then used to print the positive image we now term as photos or pictures.  What curiosity to look at an inverted image and not see failure, but possibility.  There is quite a process, an art, to developing a clear photo from a negative.  The aperture width of the light beam, the time of exposure, and sequence of chemicals used to fixate the image before drying permanently.  It takes effort, skill, and precision.  There are some points along the process where the image is unclear and the outcome questionable.  Even an experienced photographer must sometimes trust the process instead of the current image he or she sees.  

I imagine that our relationship with Christ is much the same way.  He is skillfully developing us into a masterpiece.  We think we look blurry, or the exposure is too long.  The chemicals are stinky unpleasant, and we think we're going in the wrong order.  Surely, it cannot be meant for us to wait this long before the next step.  Look at that person over there, they've gone through this step and the next in half the time we've been in this step.  And maybe I didn't have enough exposure because that masterpiece over there seems to have been under the spotlight forever, and the result is breathtaking.  I'm not sure God knows what he's doing because this looks nothing like what I see going on in any of those other pieces.  Or, we get comfortable where we're at and do not want to move to the next step.  Will it hurt?  I have finally come to acceptance of this step, and now I must move?  Why?  No one else is moving yet.  Surely, this is too soon.  

It is only when we can step back and trust the skillful hands with which God develops us when we entrust ourselves and our negatives to him that we start to see the beauty in the process.  Maybe we are part of a collage, or perhaps we are a single photo wonder.  It is not to us to worry. We are still in process.  We are still in development.  We all question at times, but our final image is not yet fixed.  Sometimes, even when the final image is fixed, we can only see the beauty in the company of others.  We provided a unique perspective or key piece to bring the whole together.

So, take heart.  Be encouraged.  God sees beyond the negative.  And those that you saw develop quicker?  Well, you didn't see the times when they were impatient and had to start the process over because they refused the exposure or did not follow the correct procedure.  We all have a purpose, a design, and Master Developer. 

¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, ¹⁸ while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 

- 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

 

 

I'm okay with the negatives, because I know God sees beyond them.