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It can be difficult to shoot landscapes without clouds. This picture, minus the clouds, is rather boring. It lacks drama. The contours of the mountains become flat. The sky is flat. The picture is flat, yet add these clouds and the picture takes on a majestic aura.
The Bible often speaks of clouds. It’s a cloud that shrouds God’s presence on Mt. Sinai. A cloud filled the Temple at its dedication. And of course, Jesus was taken to heaven in a cloud. Clouds remind us of the majesty of God.
Clouds also display the vastness of God’s faithfulness. “Your unfailing love, O LORD, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.” Psalm 36:5 New Living Translation
The clouds in the picture force us to look upwards. The psalmist states that God’s faithfulness reaches beyond these clouds. However, we struggle to trust God’s faithfulness.
Christians often equate God’s faithfulness with a life free from pain. If God were truly faithful he would make my life comfortable. If God were truly faithful he would cause my family to live in harmony. If God were truly faithful I’d always have a job. Yet Christians lose their jobs, have dysfunctional families and live in poverty. How can God’s faithfulness be trusted?
The author of this psalm is David, a man who was pursued by King Saul, a man whose son wanted his throne. Yet he knew the faithfulness of God.
God’s faithfulness is displayed for us on a cross. Here God was faithful to humanity, he was faithful to you. May the clouds that remind you of God’s majesty also remind you of the vastness of his faithfulness no matter the circumstances of your life.
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Hello, Doug,
A friend of mine and a relative of yours introduced me to your site; Donna Lewis. She is related to you through the Brauner family. Matter of fact, I believe she talked with you today and she called me right away because she was so impressed with her new discovery and the content of your site that she couldn’t help but share it with me. I believe for a two-fold reason.
One, the devotions and how much they spoke to her and not wanting to keep it to herself shared it with me. Mostly out of excitement of finding a new relative. Her and Larry have done extensive research of the family, which I’m sure she told you about. All quite impressive.
Two, because of your photography and one in particular – the cloud devotion. I enjoy photography very much, although I’m reluctant to say that I am a photographer, I do a pretty good job behind the lens. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out a proper name to call my photography so that I can establish a Facebook page and maybe even a website exclusively for it, but have not found anything that reflects how I want it to be known by – that is until this evening.
I have a deep appreciation and love for photographing clouds. Donna saw this devotion and said she immediately thought of me and my photos. So I had to look into this as well. I never thought of how clouds were mentioned in the Bible or their connection to God. Your devotion for today was quite revealing to me, also. As long as it is not already taken, I’m going to see if the name “Majestic Cloud Photography” is available. If it is, I’m asking permission to use part of your devotion to use as a byline to expand on the name. Would you be willing to allow me to use it? I don’t want my own name associated with my photography, I want the name to be one that reflects the splendor and beauty of His world around us and the gift that He has given me to be able to capture it.
I appreciate your consideration and hope to hear from you soon, either way I will be visiting with you through your devotions each day and appreciating your gift to not only share through your photography, but your words of inspiration and encouragement, as well.
God bless you always in all His wondrous ways.
Lynda Lorenz
Lynda,
I would be deeply honored if you chose to use all or part of the devotion in this new photography adventure.Like you, I’m in love with photography. I’ve loved taking pictures for many years, though for most of my life I could not afford the film or the processing. My father, Ken Brauner, another relative of Donna’s, was a professional artist, a painter who made a name for himself in the wood products industry with his paintings. I can’t draw a straight line even though I was around him, but he gave me a way of seeing the world, a perspective that influences my photography.
The digital darkroom can be a little intimidating when you first start, but I would encourage you to make the leap when you feel comfortable. It can be overwhelming when a person first uploads a picture into the new post processing software and you have all these choices of what to do with your picture. For the people live around me I’m offering a free two hour Lightroom workshop because the software can be intimidating. What learning post production will do for you is release even more of your God given creativity. You’ll mess up some pictures, start over, and then go “wow” when a pic turns out the way you want.
I love the name of your photography. I pray that God will use it to touch people with his majesty and grace. Feel free to join my Facebook group, Praying With The Eyes, so that you can add pictures of your cloud photography and share it with our community. You can check out some of my photography on the PWTE website. In the upper left hand corner are a couple of tabs that state, “Photo Projects” and “Garden of the Gods.”
I hope that you will continue to follow the PWTE blog and share it with others. I also produce a twice monthly podcast that is linked to the website which you can also find on iTunes.
Thanks again for your kind comments and I’m honored that you would want to use a portion of my blog for your photography. God’s peace be with you. Doug