Thoughts on the Verge of 19

I just got a text asking how old i was turning. "19? 20?" WOW that seems really really really old! 20 is halfway to 40. 40 is halfway to DEAD! sorry all you old folks out there. But as I think about it, what have I accomplished in the past nearly 20 years of my life? Let's see:

1. Owned High School
2. Ran KMHS
3. Worked at camp nearly ALL summer
4. Made some awesome friends
5. DEDICATED MY LIFE TO THE LORD!

This fifth one is probably the absolute most important one. But the problem is that this happened nearly 12 years ago. Now when I say problem I do not mean PROBLEM, I simply mean that it has taken me about 10 years to move past my Christian infancy. It has only been in the past two years that cared anything about reading the Word or seeking the Creator. Only in the past two years have I started talking about God and recognizing what He is doing in my life. Only in the past two years have I come to begin to understand who God is, that He is LOVE and wants a relationship with me.

While I have come a very long way in those two/twelve years, I have not come far enough to the Lord.

Paul scolds the Corinthians for being so immature, for drinking milk when they should have been eating meat like grown men, and all this only after a little while knowing the Lord in a completely pagan, anti-God society. That means there is NO EXCUSE for me! NO EXCUSE for me to be still where I am, wavering between God and this world. I must make a choice, to give up everything of mine, my will, my wants, my love, my emotions, and lay it all down at the foot of the cross. I have to become nothing so that God can be everything in me.

And so I pray that God takes the feeble sacrifice of my life and blesses it with His work. It is my prayer that at the end of the next two decades of my life, I find myself so infatuated with the Lord that I can't even see straight in this world of darkness. That I have abandoned all the earthly, fleshly things and am seeking after the ONLY ONE WHO NEVER FAILS! This is my prayer, but for now, I press on to know him. As Hosea says:

"Come, let us return to the LORD
For He has torn us, but He will heal us;
He has wounded us, but He will bandage us.
He will revive us after two days;
He will raise us up on the third day,
That we may live before Him.
So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain,
LIke the spring rain watering the earth."
-Hosea 6:1-3