Evening Light

There are golden times for taking photographs. One them is right now... as the sun is setting. The light being thrown is amazing. Deep shadows. Saturated colors. I should be out... but I'm sitting here enjoying the light and how as it sinks into the west it changes second by second the woods into which I am looking.

Not picking up the camera has taken an act of will. The photographer in me wants to capture the lit limbs, the paling prairie below, the evening birds zipping across. But tonight, more than taking pictures, I need some quietness. I need a time to simply enjoy the scene. Yes, it will never come to me quite this way again... which is all the reason more not to view it through my Nikon's lens, but to open my eyes wide and peer into the beauty that God has set before me.

The drama of the fading sunlight has captured my attention in a way that the full blaze of the noonday sun did not just a little over eight hours ago. I took it for granted. It is only as the light is fading -- and illuminating its impending disappearance -- that I am watching it.

How short-sighted of me. Literally.

I fear I am that way spiritually, too. God's light is all around and within me and yet, far too often, I do not pay enough attention to it. The Spirit is moving in me... and I take it for granted.

But, unlike today's sunlight, God's light will not wane. Nor does it shout it's existence. It merely beckons those of us who are willing to mind the light... to notice it.

The green of the trees is darkening now. The limbs have turned from golden brown to black. The birds are silhouettes against the deepening sky.

But God's light shines on.

Thank you for this day.

-- Brent