After two years of being involved in this Learning To Live blog ministry, I’ve learned something that many other Christian bloggers have learned.
IMAGE IS IMPORTANT.
And throughout the past couple of years of learning how to create post thumbnail images for this blog ministry (plus other kinds of graphic visuals), I’ve seen God “teaching [me] to profit” (Isaiah 48:17) through each step of my image design journey as a blogger.
A good example of the Lord’s guidance in this aspect of Learning To Live is when God led me to recently begin using a program called Photopea.
5 Biblical Lessons I Learned From Photopea
Now, in case you don’t really know what Photopea is, it is basically a free alternative to the world-renowned graphic design, photo manipulation program: Photoshop.
And for this blog post, I’d like to share 5 Biblical lessons that I’ve personally learned from using Photopea.
Lesson #1: Blending Modes & Little Things
When I first started to use Photopea, I never really saw any importance in Photopea’s blending modes. However, that all changed after I watched a YouTube video tutorial demonstrating the importance of blending modes.
After seeing that video, I began to take the blending modes in Photopea more seriously, and started using them more often in making the post thumbnail images for Learning To Live. An example of this is the post thumbnail for last week’s post.
And as I contemplate over my experience of discovering the importance of blend modes, it reminds me of something Jesus said in Luke chapter 16:
He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.
(Luke 16:10)
Just like how I–at first–considered the blend modes in Photopea to be small and not very important, but then later on discovering how HUGELY important they really were, the same thing applies to the “least” things in life.
We may think that some things like washing dishes or even our own facial expressions are small and unimportant, but they’re really HUGELY important details that can make or break our Christian faithfulness to the Lord.
It kinda reminds me of something God said it Jeremiah:
If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you,
(Jeremiah 12:5)
Then how can you contend with horses?
And if in the land of peace,
In which you trusted, they wearied you,
Then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan?
If we become easily wearied in faithfulness to God when it comes to small and unimportant things like sweeping floors, then how can we stand strong in faithfulness to God in big and important things like the enforcement of the mark of the beast?
In the same way I saw the blending modes in Photopea to be small and unimportant, but it took seeing them through the eyes of a more professional graphic designer to realize their HUGE importance, so it is that we need to learn to see the least things in life through the eyes of Heaven, and so their HUGE importance for our own Christian faithfulness.
Lesson #2: Patience, Patience, Patience
When I first started using Photopea, I was using it on a fairly slow desktop computer.
So, for instance, what would normally take one second to scale & resize an image would–for me and my poor computer– take five minutes for the picture’s size adjustment to be completely processed.
During times where it felt like HOURS to simply edit a single photo, I would pray in my mind–regardless of the impatient emotions boiling in my heart–the following prayer:
“Thank You Lord that it’s taking forever for this image to be edited, so through this You teach me to be patient and clean my heart from impatience. Amen!”
James 1:3 says:
knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
(James 1:3)
In the same way God used Photopea to teach me the Biblical lesson of patience, so He also uses various trials to teach us patience.
Lesson #3: We All Need Professional Help
One of the things that really helped me excel in better using Photopea was by simply watching video tutorials on YouTube from people who’ve had more “professional” experience in using Photopea.
And in a way, for us Christians, we also need more “professional help” from Christians who’ve had matured and grown more in the faith than us.
It’s like how Paul put it in the book of Titus:
the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things— 4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children
(Titus 2:3-4)
In one of my favorite devotionals, Sons And Daughters of God, the author makes this statement:
How touching to see youth and old age relying one upon the other, the youth looking up to the aged for counsel and wisdom, the aged looking to the youth for help and sympathy. This is as it should be. God would have the young possess such qualification of character that they shall find delight in the friendship of the old, that they may be united in the endearing bonds of affection to those who are approaching the borders of the grave.
–Sons And Daughters Of God pg. 161-
Lesson #4: The Loveliness of The Liquify Filter
One of my favorite tools in Photopea is the Liquify Filter.
The Liquify Filter is one of the tools in Photopea that gives you the ability to distort, warp, twist, smudge, bloat, or shrink any part of an uploaded image to make it look artistic or interesting.
The following photo gives an example of what the Liquify Filter does:
The Biblical lesson that I gleaned from this is that just like the Liquify Filter in Photopea can help transform a picture to look totally different, so it is that God uses trials to help transform our sin-corrupted hearts and characters to become totally different.
It reminds me of what Job said:
But He knows the way that I take;
When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.
(Job 23:10)
Lesson #5: God Gives The Desires Of The Heart
Around April of 2021, I was doing what I guess I’ll call “prayer pacing” (i.e. walking back and forth in my room talking to God silently in my mind).
As I was prayer pacing, I began to pray to the Lord about a desire in my heart that was unexpectedly bubbling in me.
“Lord,” I prayed in my mind. “I really wanna level up the graphic design aspect of Learning To Live. I’ve been using Canva for two years already, but I’m honestly becoming bored with it. Father, is there a way You could somehow open a door for me to use something more advanced like Photoshop to make graphics for Learning To Live?”
God’s response to me at that time was:
Just wait until I open that door.
Okay, Lord! I replied. I’ll continue to use Canva until You open the door in Your perfect timing. I surrender to You this desire in my heart to level up Learning To Live’s graphic design game. Amen!
Friend, only one month after I prayed that prayer, God opened that door.
He gave me that tiny desire of my heart by leading me to Photopea!
This is the fifth and final Biblical lesson that this graphic design software, Photopea, has taught me.
God TRULY gives even the SMALLEST desires of our hearts!
It’s just like how David put it in Psalm 37:
Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
(Psalm 37:4)
And so, on that note, I’d like to conclude this blog post with one of my favorite songs, God Gives Again by the Nebblett Family.
Amen! Maranatha!