My Twenties in Review

My twenty-ninth birthday has come and gone. It left in its wake the realization that this is my very last year as “a twenty-something.” I spent my birthday alone by choice so that I could enjoy the sweet solitude of my own company and, in that time alone, I did a little praying and reflecting. At the end of it all I came to one jarring conclusion: I will not miss my twenties once I’ve turned thirty.

While I appreciate and am grateful for the growth and lessons that have taken place in my tumultuous twenties, I am going to be so over it when this decade of my life is complete. I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way about their twenties because some of you have shared with me that you feel the same.

The twenties have been fun but they have also been painful. I “wilded out” like nobody’s business in my early twenties and I paid dearly for it too. Still, I have very few regrets because I do realize that a lot of who I was then has a great deal to do with who I am (and who I am not) now.

God has been so good (and merciful) to me, too. He rescued me from so many bad decisions and opened my eyes to the error of my ways so that I wouldn’t go those routes anymore. That thought alone brings a tsunami to my dark eyes. When I think of where I could have been had He not intervened on my behalf … Selah.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate my twenties. I’m just not going to be broken up about them “exiting stage left.” One’s twenties are all about self-discovery and, no matter how you slice it, self-discovery is a bittersweet thing and it doesn’t usually get sweet until after the discovery.

At any rate, I welcome my twenty-ninth year with great anticipation. I plan to spend this, my last twenty-something year in a state of constant reflection. I will look back on all I’ve been through since August 2000, even read some of my old journals and writings over the years and I will take all that I have learned in my twenties into my thirties with joy and thanksgiving.

Looking back on it all, my life could have gone so many different ways but God (mercifully) saw fit to put me on a path that would eventually bring me to where I am now … content and a lot surer of myself than when I first began the “Twenties Trot.”

Be Delightful

“Delight yourself also in the Lord and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart.” --Psalm 37:4 [AMP]
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These words are often misinterpreted and taken to mean that if you praise God just enough, He will give you what you want. But that is not it at all. The Psalmist is not advising that we hold out our hands like hungry children. Instead we are being admonished to come to know God in such an intimate way that our hearts become intertwined with His and His desires for us become our desires for ourselves.

And we do serve a benevolent and loving God who cares about our happiness but, not everything we want is in our best interest. He knows this and that is why it is in our best interest to closely commune with Him and allow Him to lead us down the path He has just for us. There is safety and liberty in His arms and His will and we should take care to remember that it is not always about us but it is always about Him being glorified in our lives.


© 2009 EGP

FiftyOneTen

“Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and make me willing to obey you.” Psalm 51:10-12, NLT

The 51st Psalm began to resonate in my heart the night I realized that I didn’t love Jesus as much as I thought or had convinced myself that I did. There were still people, places and things that I hadn’t entirely given over to God and my relationship with Him was suffering because of it. I couldn’t even pray without being distracted by these issues … these things that had I given them over to and left in the hands of God, would have been water under the bridge, freeing me to live this life with faithful abandon.

I had always been familiar with the 51st Psalm but it took on a whole new meaning when I realized just how wretched I had been. I was guilty of going through the motions of religion and religious rituals and allowing them to replace that which was more important; a relationship with the Almighty.

King David knew and understood that what God really wanted was relationship. God wanted the heart behind the deeds.

“You do not desire sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.”Psalm 51:16-17

Seeing this with my own eyes and understanding it with my own heart has been one of the sweetest revelations about the love of God that I have ever had. He loved me and desired a reciprocal relationship with me! Going through the motions of religion was meaningless to Him. The content of my heart held a lot more weight as far as He was concerned.

So, the 51st Psalm became the song of my heart. It became my deepest desire concerning my Heavenly Father. And for the rest of my days I will continue to pray this prayer of King David, a man after God’s own heart because I want nothing more than to be a woman after God’s own heart, a mirror image of Him and canvas upon which to create a divine masterpiece.

My 51st Psalm Prayer

Lord, fashion for me a new heart of which the contents are pleasing in Your sight. Don’t turn away from me, I couldn’t bear it. Please don’t take the sweet peace of your presence away from me. Help me to remain joyful in my walk and service to you, even when things get hard. I ask these things because I want to worship you with a clean, purified, overflowing, unhindered heart and faithful abandon. I don’t want anything to stand in the way of what is yours; a heart that is unequivocally YOURS. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

© 2009