It was a little past 1 AM. My whole family went to bed at 11 and yet I found myself waking up and not being able to sleep. Usually when I get like that, I open my bible and so I was wondering what God wanted to convey to me.
I laid on the couch just staring at the light bulb for minutes. I thought, “Hmm, let me take a picture of that light bulb” and so I did. To the left of the lampstand happens to be a big wall art almost spanning the entire wall, a cropped rendition of Michaelangelo’s fresco “The Creation of Adam” only showing the hand of God extending towards Adam. I always thought it was a perfect depiction of a divine exchange. Maybe I heard someone dub it that, but I don’t quite remember.
I proceeded to take cropped pictures of the wall art as the lens currently on my camera necessitates for me to be distant to get a fuller perspective of the subject, but my horizontal position gave me a different perspective on the painting so I took a picture of God’s hand reaching from the sky to man in the proper inclined angle. Since our wall art was purposely cropped only to depict the hands, it doesn’t actually show God’s higher position than man as originally shown in the fresco painting.
It was after I finished snapping the pictures that I decided to open my bible. I landed on a passage in Hosea talking about Gomer, the prophet’s harlot wife. As I kept reading about her constant infidelity to her husband because of her wanderlust, it reminded me we are like Gomer when God created us to have an intimate relationship with Him and yet, we would rather pursue other things and idols and prioritize those over our relationship with God.
Going on with my reading, my eyes transfixed on these verses,
“I will betroth you to Me forever;
Yes, I will betroth you to Me
In righteousness and justice,
In lovingkindness and mercy;I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness,
And you shall know the Lord.”Hosea 2:19-20
As I pondered on those words, the meaning of the Divine exchange became clearer to me. When God opens your spiritual eyes so to speak, He does so because He sees in you a heart who is inclined to Him, to know Him and He reveals Himself to you. God only reveals Himself to people who are receptive as exemplified when Jesus spoke in parables to those He knew wouldn’t receive Him, and yet, He explained the very meaning of those parables to His disciples, His closest companions.
How very fitting it was for me to take a picture of the light bulb and God’s hand reaching down to man. Little did I know God was going to light up the proverbial light bulb for me regarding the meaning of a true divine exchange.