Psalm 27:5 “For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; in the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock.” 

When I was in high school one of the electives I chose was photography. In my naïve high school mind, I thought it would be an easy class to get an A in, for it was just about going around and taking pictures or so I thought. Little did I know that now over 30 years later, this class would have such spiritual significance. Paul Manwaring says, “God wastes nothing and uses everything,” this is one of those moments for me. Here is what I heard the Lord say yesterday… “I WANT TO TAKE THE NEGATIVES INTO THE DARKROOM TO DEVELOP THE IMAGE ON THEM AND THEN BRING THEM OUT INTO THE LIGHT.”
After hearing these words, I immediately flashed to my time in photography class in high school, because we were required to develop negatives that we took with our cameras. We would enter the darkroom with our negative. Next we would take the negative that was black and we were required to put it in a bin of water to clean the negative; then we would put it in the developer for a set amount of time (if it stays in the developer too long it will become over exposed); next it went into the stop bath, to halt the developing process; then it went into the fixer; before entering a final time in another bin of water for one more rinse. We then would clip the negative to a wire for it to air dry. Once the negative was dry, the image was visible and the ability to make a print was ready. 

We are God’s negatives, we are without the obvious image, but even though it is not visible, the image is still there, so God calls us into the darkroom, the secret place, the prayer closet, where others cannot see us. We are called out of the public eye not for our destruction, but for our development. You cannot develop negatives in the light for you will destroy the image. You must bring it into the dark, so it can work through the process of development (Selah). Many of us have been invited into the darkroom, we have not been able to see anything, we have no idea what is really going on, but we know we are not alone, we know God is with us. We have been in the darkroom for the sake of development. 
God Himself has invited us to His darkroom so He can develop the image of Himself in our lives. Many refuse this process, but those who said yes, not knowing what they were getting into, just knowing they heard the voice of the Lord, went in and we are about to be put on display. His image is visible, He can see Himself in us, the negative that was once just a black film, now has the image of God on it. It is still dark, we are still not clear yet where when we are coming out, but we can know for certain it is in the dark that He develops us into His image. 
One final thing I remembered about my high school dark room, the only light in that room was a red light. It was in the red light that we would look at the image to see if it still needed to be in one of the tubs to bring forth the best image possible. The Lord is looking at our image through the blood of Jesus and once we are the best image of Him, we will be brought out into the light, not for our glory, but for His because we will now be an accurate image of Him in the earth. This is the reason for the darkroom!