The darkness of nightfall settles in around you, and you begin to notice the distant horizon growing more and more elusive as if a fog is settling over it.  You strain your eyes to see across the field, but you just can't see clearly.  Even as you squint, nothing comes into focus.  Was that something moving along the tree line?  Maybe the time has come to pack things up and head back to camp.  After all, this process will reverse itself in the morning.

This memory comes from my days as a teenager sitting in a stand waiting for a buck to come into my view.  You would wait until the last few moments of daylight were about gone before giving up the hunt for that day.  The next morning, we would rise before daylight to be in the stand awaiting for the darkness to fade into daylight in hopes that our hunt would be successful.

I have noticed this phenomenon in different areas of my life as well.  For example, when I first started out in my current career path, it was like the dawn.  I really couldn't see that clearly where I was heading, but it was getting brighter as time passed by.  Just as I seemed to have come into broad daylight and I thought I knew where I was heading, it started to turn toward evening. The momentum of the first several months began to wear off and things began to get out of focus.  It wasn't that I was discouraged to the point of giving up the hunt, but it was a matter of waiting through the night for dawn to come once again.  The last few weeks, my focus has returned, and I feel like the brightness of the noon day sun is at hand.

I have seen this happen to me in my spiritual life as well.  There are times when things appear to be clearly in focus, and then there are times when twilight begins to settle in around me.  Although it may appear as if night and darkness have fallen, there is still plenty of light from the moon and stars holding out hope.  This hope of the morning sun revives your spirit to encouraging you to not give up but await the dawn.  As the morning sun begins to shine, so your does your life shine as well.

Perhaps now, this very moment in my life, the dawn returns.  The sun is beginning to light up the horizon in brilliant hues of orange, red, and blues. Perhaps the night has come to increase my thirst for the daylight.  As I contemplate the place where I am and the reason God brought me here, there seems to be a renewing of energy for the things of the Kingdom.  The abbreviated time we have here on earth passes so quickly, we must not dwell in the darkness too long.  The time is upon us to regain our focus, to strive for the light of day.