Rods, Cones, and Shades of Gray
Posted in Flight Metaphors, love, Nick's Posts, Sin 2 comments
In training to be a pilot, I’ve been learning some really cool stuff lately. One thing I’ve recently learned about is the human eye (we learn about this because it affects how we scan for traffic in the plane). Apparently, in the back of our eyeballs, there are two types of photoreceptors that affect what we see and how we see it. These are called the rods and the cones.
The rods are located on the outside of the central visual field. They detect changes in intensity of light, but do not detect color, only shades of gray.
The cones are the photoreceptors that detect color. They are located in both the center and outside of the central visual field. They require a lot of light to operate effectively. This is why objects at night lack color.
So why does this matter for Christianity? Well, it made me think of an analogy. When you lie to someone or are dishonest, where are you usually looking? For most of us, it would be a natural reaction to avoid eye contact. And if you were trying to hide from someone, what is one thing you might do? Turn out the lights. Now, which are the photoreceptors that are on the outside and are also the only photoreceptors that work at night? The rods. And what color do the rods see? Shades of gray.
When we are lying to God or hiding from God, we’re seeing things in shades of gray. It’s our way of justifying what we are doing. After all, we want the best of both worlds. We want to keep doing whatever it is that we know deep down God doesn’t want us to do, but we also want to keep God’s favor. So there is a shade of gray. And once things appear in shades of gray, it becomes both harder to look back at God (because doing so means owning up to our sin) and easier to look away (because sin is so enticing and we don’t want to have to face God after having sinned).
We all mess up. We’ve all sinned. And seasoned Christians know how hard it can be to approach God after we’ve sinned. It is tough, but it is necessary. But the thing is, God’s joy that you came back vastly out measures his disappointment that you left. We see this clearly throughout the Bible, especially in the story of the prodigal son. One verse that I like is Micah 7:19, “[God] will again have compassion on us; [he] will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depth of the sea.”
And hey, if you’re sticking with my analogy, once you look back at God, his light will make everything appear in full color again, and that is soooo much better than shades of gray.
2 comments:
As usual, Nick, EXCELLENT word! I appreciate your thoughtful insights!
In training to be a pilot, I’ve been learning some really cool stuff lately. One thing I’ve recently learned about is the human eye (we learn about this because it affects how we scan for traffic in the plane). Apparently, in the back of our eyeballs, there are two types of photoreceptors that affect what we see and how we see it. These are called the rods and the cones.
The rods are located on the outside of the central visual field. They detect changes in intensity of light, but do not detect color, only shades of gray.
The cones are the photoreceptors that detect color. They are located in both the center and outside of the central visual field. They require a lot of light to operate effectively. This is why objects at night lack color.
So why does this matter for Christianity? Well, it made me think of an analogy. When you lie to someone or are dishonest, where are you usually looking? For most of us, it would be a natural reaction to avoid eye contact. And if you were trying to hide from someone, what is one thing you might do? Turn out the lights. Now, which are the photoreceptors that are on the outside and are also the only photoreceptors that work at night? The rods. And what color do the rods see? Shades of gray.
When we are lying to God or hiding from God, we’re seeing things in shades of gray. It’s our way of justifying what we are doing. After all, we want the best of both worlds. We want to keep doing whatever it is that we know deep down God doesn’t want us to do, but we also want to keep God’s favor. So there is a shade of gray. And once things appear in shades of gray, it becomes both harder to look back at God (because doing so means owning up to our sin) and easier to look away (because sin is so enticing and we don’t want to have to face God after having sinned).
We all mess up. We’ve all sinned. And seasoned Christians know how hard it can be to approach God after we’ve sinned. It is tough, but it is necessary. But the thing is, God’s joy that you came back vastly out measures his disappointment that you left. We see this clearly throughout the Bible, especially in the story of the prodigal son. One verse that I like is Micah 7:19, “[God] will again have compassion on us; [he] will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depth of the sea.”
And hey, if you’re sticking with my analogy, once you look back at God, his light will make everything appear in full color again, and that is soooo much better than shades of grey
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