Pictures.

JOYPEACE

I HAD JUST COMPLETED MY DAILY RUN -- a five-mile circuit up Highland Ave. and several times around the reservoir above the Pittsburgh Zoo. It was the spring of '81 and I was finishing my final weeks of seminary. As I arrived back on campus I spotted a classmate with a 35mm camera in his hand. "Hey, Dave! Let me take your picture." He explained that he was compiling some candid photos for a student activity page in some sort of seminary publication. He wanted me to start at the end of the campus drive and jog toward him so he could get a good shot of a student engaged in physical exercise. I complied. Of course, now I wasn't thinking about running as much as I was about "posing." After all, other people would be seeing this. It might be the photo that made me famous! Well, not really. I didn't expect to ever see it again, but still I must confess I was a little self-conscious. I wanted it to look right. Flash forward to six or eight months later. I had graduated and was in my first pastorate. One day an envelope came in the mail and it was from the seminary. As a recent graduate, they were sending me the course catalog for the new school year. To my surprise, I discovered that the front cover was a picture of me running up the main campus drive! I wore a white tank top and gold and blue (WV colors, of course!) satin running shorts and my skin glistened in the sun. I looked tan and healthy. I like to think that female enrollment jumped the following year. But that's not my point. My mind immediately recalled the day the picture was taken. I had never expected to see it at all, and certainly not in such a prominent place. I couldn't help but remember wondering how I would look. It wasn't a candid photo at all; it was contrived, really, and I was able at least to present my "good side" to the camera. What do people see when we DON'T know that they are looking? Who are we when the snapshots are truly candid? Would we be ashamed to have certain "pictures" of our character and personality published for all the world to see? Behind the walls of your home, how do you behave with your spouse or your child? When you are alone or out of town, what do you put in front of your eyes or where do your feet take you? Will you be pleased or ashamed when Jesus pulls out the photo album someday and begins to turn the pages of the pictorial record of your life? I've never made the front cover of a national news magazine. (Thank goodness!) But what if I did? Would it be for some commendation, or because I was a criminal? Would my mother be proud of me, or would she stop answering the telephone? And if God chose one picture that represented the whole of my life, would I be humbled and thankful or would I be embarrassed and ashamed? After all, His lens is on us and the shutter is open.