When I say that, I feel that I have accomplished something. Like a soldier who has been to the war, talking to the ones who are just going out to war. There is some truth in that, but there's also a hint of pride. I wanted to hear, wow you've been through a lot, I wanted to feel a pat on the back. Is this assessment true? Sometimes I can be hard on myself. And now I'm confused.
But as I reflect upon this it's nice to hear, but I refuse to believe that. Something inside me refuses to accept this sort of lie--that I'm past my prime. I hear myself criticizing myself, really you are past your prime? How about the next 50 years more? Are you going to live and look at today from the past's perspective? I refuse to accept that. How about the other statement you say and the declaration that you pray over people, that the best days of their life are still to come? Don't you believe that perhaps and more likely God has still something in store for you in the future, that the best days of your life are still ahead of you?
Yes. The best days of my life are still ahead of me. I am not past my prime yet. I remember Caleb that even at the end of his life he said that he can still fight wars and he refused to retire.
"... just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then." - Joshua 14:10-11
I want to be like that. I refuse to view today from the perspective of past glories and victories. His mercies are NEW every morning. I'm tempted to say 30 is the new 20. But I think it's another deviation from reality. 30 is 30. But Being 30, I'll celebrate God's faithfulness in the last decade. In the last 10 years (2001-2010):
- I've supported myself out of college and graduated in Architecture.
- I've received my calling as a minister of the gospel.
- God has allowed me to serve Him in many ways, especially through young people.
- I've entered the seminary and finished my M. Div.
- God has blessed me with family who continues to be a constant support in my life.
- God has blessed me with a wonderful wife for whom and to whom I'm so grateful.
- And many, many more. I've been blessed.
Being 30, I look forward for the new decade, new season, new adventure of my walk with God.
Thank God for helping me put things in perspective. My advice, prepare to become thirty and settle your hang-ups (I feel with so much busyness I've failed to prepare myself about this). Face the truth. Celebrate the past, live in the now, and anticipate the best days that are yet to come.
My prayer is that God, make it more clearer, strip me off the accolades so that I may see myself from Your eyes. Because that's what matters. I cannot satisfy the world's standards because I am not of the world, just as Jesus is. My identity is in Christ.
Philippians 3: 7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
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