For several years I’ve been wanting to get a new camera.  Not a cheap little point and shoot digital either.  A nice pro-grade dslr.  Something I could go out and take some nice shots with that I could have printed up and possibly sell.  Maybe do some professional quality photographs for family and friends and just document life together.

This isn’t a passing obsession.

I’ve done photography for Olan Mills, photographing children, families and senior pictures.  I’ve worked occasionally for a local professional photographer who’s been doing it for over thirty years.  I’ve played with unofficial camera hacks to get more out of my little point and shoot canon.

For years, I’ve enjoyed incorporating photography into worship and fellowship by taking photographs at church events.

There’s a song that has come to mind as of late. Called “It’s all who you know” by Newsboys.

For the want of a marker
the doctors lost their place
For the want of a cut-line
they couldn’t lift his face
For the want of a facelift
his ratings dropped
Then the sitcom folded
then the network flopped

after the climb
after time turns designs to despair
it is good
nothing’s fair
it’s all who you know

For the want of a cough drop
the musher’s throat went hoarse
For the want of direction
the huskies went off course
Then the sled got snowbound
it took some time to free `em
Now they’re on display
inside the British Museum

after the climb
after time turns designs to despair
it is good
nothing’s fair
it’s all who you know

and after the fall
after all of our strivings are dust
even so
good for us
it’s all who you know

For the want of a compass
we’d be shuffling charts
For the want of good radar
we’d be glacier parts
For the want of a lighthouse
can’t you see
we’d be lost at sea
lost at sea

The frustrating part is that even so badly as I want this camera, I don’t want it at all if it’s not what God wants for me.  It’s taken a long time to get to that.  Today it became clear. In fact there are other things in my life that need the same kind of surrender/leap of faith and trust in God.

There are lots of things I want right now.  Some things I even think I need.  A new job.  A new camera.  To pay off debt.  A new car.  To even fix the car we have.  I think these things overpower me.  My own desires entrap me.  These (and I hate to put it this way) lusts, covets, and desires become my gods and idols.  I start scheming new ways to make the money I can to afford these things.  I went through the Dave Ramsey financial peace classes a few years back.  We got rid of all the credit cards.  We went gazelle intense and lived off of beans and rice.  All in all, God allowed those attempts to be thwarted.  My pay was cut at the church multiple times screwing up our family budget and I had to get another job.  Eventually, I just realized that what people required of me at the church and paid me for was not what God wanted from me.  I resigned in the midst of all of it.  I worked full-time doing photography for awhile with Olan Mills.

I have heard people say that the difference between succesful people and those who are not is this.  “Some people – things happen to them.  Other people – they happen to things.”

I think there is another category that I need to add.

Not because I think I am smarter or more able to do it.

“Some people trust that they have a God who can do anything.”

It is all who you know.

This is indeed an area I know I need to work on myself.  So what are some areas for you?  How do you need to trust God more in your life?

“There is no god except God alone.”

This is the one phrase Christians, Jews and Muslims all would agree to.  Unfortunately, we all mean very different things when we say it.  There is a profound disconnect with the mere semantics and the meaning behind the words.   One must come to the conclusion that either God is all-encompassing and fits the man-made perceptions of Him or that God is something else entirely.  Each religion would conclude that God reveals Himself through prophets, and through them the written word.  God could not be God if He submitted to our ideology of Him.

Divine Revelation.

So we have come at last to divine revelation.  How does God reveal Himself?

Jews would say God reveals Himself through His Law, the Torah, and through His Prophets.  When the prophets told of a Messiah, they would state they are still waiting for Christ.  The way to Heaven is to observe the law and commands.  Basically, “be good”.  (note:  must wonder why Jubilee was never celebrated or how sins are forgiven without the shedding of blood today).  Much of the levitical law is no longer practiced or adhered to.  Instead new laws have been added to the already long list.

Islam doesn’t seem to recognize anyone but Muhammed because in Muhammed, the final revelation was apparently given.  Though they recognize Jesus as a prophet, albeit a minor one, they do not accept His claims about Himself.  If this is true and God only reveals Himself through revelation then to the Muslim God is a silent unconcerned person yet they still pray to this silent deity though nothing will come of it.  The best they can offer is undulated service to Allah and hope for Heaven.

Christians or “Little Christs” believe that Jesus was the culmination of the prophetic texts given to the Jews (or Israelites/ Hebrews) therefore the Christ.  In Christ, the law was fulfilled, grace was administrated.  In this, the revelation through the prophets has been proven infallible.  In becoming a man, God gave us the ultimate revelation of Himself.  He transcended His own creation and stepped down into it incarnate.  Fully God and fully human He demonstrated His power over creation through the elements, through miracles, and His ultimate love for His creation.  He continues to reveal Himself today through the work of the Holy Spirit.  In the death of Christ, He is the sacrifice for all sin so that all who believe upon Him may enter into eternal glory with Him.

A God Who Loves.

Jews have half the picture but do not believe even in their own prophets.  Muslims believe in a god who stopped revealing himself with Muhammed.   Christians believe that God is alive and present today, active in His creation, communing with us through His Spirit and ultimately will return for His church (those who believe in Him as the Christ).