Seasons

The photographer in me never seems to be satisfied. I often think I need more ingredients, different light and maybe more context. Maybe I don’t know what I need. Something with depth, something that evokes questions, something that says there is a story worth finding here or maybe something that shares or illustrates a concept. I just want it to look so nice it’s worth blowing up and putting on the wall. I do know one thing for sure; I need the right focus. No exceptions. I need the exact focus intended as the photo-maker.

One autumn evening while drift fishing in the boat, I was thinking about what makes a picture “enough”? What makes my life “enough”? I glanced up to see a large hawk land in a tree. I was a long distance from the hawk and even further from the moon coming up. Low light and I’m in a rocking boat so the odds of a picture turning out were short of miraculous. I laid down my rod and picked up the camera while the boat drifted. So many moving parts lined up perfectly for a simple picture. Moon rising, hawk constantly turning his head, boat drifting and rocking in small waves, trees swaying gently and camera hoping for that perfect still moment. For one tenth of a second with a long lens, I found “enough”. I picked up my rod again with another thought…”What if someone told us that we could someday live in that perfectly held tenth of a second forever?” Definitely enough.

Our life is worth more than any picture could be. We get our miracle in Jesus. The pieces that make life “enough” are found in Christ. Such simple but necessary ingredients will make the universe gasp when our life’s shutter is finally released. Our “life in focus” has eternal potential.

Hebrews 12:2 says to “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith”. From a photographer’s perspective, it means we were created to be like a camera with fixed focus. Nothing is in focus unless our eyes are fixed on Jesus. Everything comes into focus when our eyes are fixed on Him. All the necessary ingredients of life, even when present, only make sense when our focus is on Jesus. All other ingredients are then given the focus intended. What a perfect picture. So much is riding on that final focus…click. Creation gasps. Our “Life in Focus”

Gary