Upon Turning Thirty

I once thought of myself as a writer, that it was at the core of my being to express my thoughts through either the scratch of the pen or the brush of a keystroke.  Yet, now as I look at my life I know that this is not who I am, a writer that is, but rather that it is merely a facet of my person which seeks to communicate to others the truth.  I am a man made in the image of God. I claim this not with any sense of pride or exclusiveness, but in the firm knowledge that I was created to worship and imitate an all-powerful, loving, and creative Being whom I will enjoy spending an eternity to better understand and love.  I write, because just as my Creator creates, I find joy in the act of putting thoughts to purpose and allowing them to take life. It is a humble and oft times error ridden imitation, but my hope, when I am in a sound mind, is that I may share the glory I have seen in God with others.  What is more, I aim to express praise of His glory back to Him, as I use whatever I have to look back to the one who gave everything to me. He loved me, His enemy, and called me son, so I love Him.

This is really neither here nor there, but serves as a brief amount of context as I write to contemplate my coming birthday, and the fact I will be 30 years old.  Now, part of me reminds myself that there is not necessarily any actual significance to the subjective measurement of time, which is based largely on an earth relative scale which seems largely unimportant in the grandness that is the universe.  But then, there is the other part of me that is perhaps wiser. There is purpose in the measurement of time. There are seasons and cycles that are carried on even in the settings most untouched by man. Communication necessitates that we measure time as well, and as I write, it is only due to my wish to communicate the passage of time and its effects upon me that I am jotting this down at all.  So, as I reach 30 years I find it useful to imbue the milestone with some measure of reflective significance. Of course, self reflection when in its proper state at times finds its source in those who are around me and have helped me shape my life for the better. In effect, a counting of blessings. I am not fully me without community, and in the end I hope that this is largely just a thank you.  If you are a part of my life and are not listed among those that follow in passing or otherwise, please know that you are significant no matter who you are, and should I try to list all who have helped me and who I owe gratitude to it would take well another 30 years, by which time the list would once again be obsolete. So thank you for reading, and for being a part of life. May God bless you and be glorified in you and in this writing.

I have just expounded upon time and it’s measurement, and thus only feel that some chronological order would be expedient and useful.  Thus, I shall begin where my mind takes me to childhood, but do not trust that I should follow that course completely. In fact, I should not trust the following to be in any particular order but that which follows the jumping of my mind and the strange creature that is memory into whatever it sees before it.

For instance, I remember when my father would come home from a backpacking trip, the wonder I had as a child at his backpack. The smoky odor of the campfires still hung about it as it sat in our living room against the piano. Its size nearly encompassing the entirety of my person, I still recall the distinct feel of the nylon cloth and the rigid zippers protruding with its content. It haunts my thoughts with the memory and hope of imaginative landscapes, daring adventures, and untold wonders that would be conjured as I stood near it. Often I would try to pick it up, fumbling with the shoulder straps that ran a great deal longer than my torso, and which were wider than my childish frame. Yet I persisted in my attempt to shoulder the great bag, dreaming of the day when I could journey to distant lands and attempt the imaginative feats of strength and rugged testing that I knew my father had. I now laugh as I look back, especially when I see my son try to lift the day pack I use for work. I laugh and I am humbled as the weight of it settles on my mind.

All I wanted at the time was to be the man that my father is. I dreamed of having the strength to accomplish great feats in the unknown. I still hope to this day be such a man as my father, but there is a deeper vein here. I long that I should dream so steadily to be like my heavenly Father. In this my earthly father was true, and the images have no difficulty associating. To dream of lasting purity, full righteousness, and glorious deeds of faith would mean more to me than I can say or even imagine. These dreams give way to the longing for accomplishment.

To accomplish a goal set before me still burns in my memory. To shoulder the adventures, courage, and responsibility of my father not only inspired me, but drew me to a deep respect and love for the man I longed to emulate. So it should be with our heavenly Father. What I have seen him do I should long to do myself. He is merciful, so should I aim to have mercy. He is just, so I should seek to be just. He is holy, so should I long to be holy. He is love, and so should I ever live in a way that honors and mirrors His mightiest sacrifice.

Such dreams, now so sadly seen as childish by our object driven society, ever pushed me to ponder who I would become as I looked at the man who was before me. I was not him, but wished it to be likened in every way. This, this here, is where I truly long to find my belonging. That I should ponder what it would be to be likened to Christ. It is a thought that my very mind pushes away at the absurdity of such an aspiration. Yet, has He not called us to such? Absolutely! We are to strive to live and love as ambassadors for Christ. To be Him to a broken world.

This is a lofty ambition, and just as I would be strong enough to carry my father's backpack, so I see the longing to pick up Christ's cross. Yet, what does this look like, to become the man that Christ has called?  Answering this question in its entirety would take far longer than I care to express in this piece, but as I look back I see that it is a question to be sought after not in one long draught, but in the pursuit of every day.

What I will say is that as I seek, I can do little more than look to live out the reflection of God’s compassion as I live in gratitude to His all encompassing love.  In so thinking and speaking of compassion and gratitude, I must confess that it has not always been in my heart to so pursue it. For many years I had absolute contempt for most of humanity, and could have cared less that it should suffer and die.  So much so that I had little regard as to the existence of others, and was resolute in my thought that I should escape to some solitary place to live out my life. It might have been so for my who life were it not for my mother.

In my mother I have always seen mercy and compassion.  I being often hot headed and ready to fight merely on the basis of defending what I perceive as right and accurate (here the emphasis being on accurate as a weapon of intellectual superiority), but from childhood my mother has always been an example of Christ which counters this aspect of my character.   Never more clearly do I remember this than in one instance in which I spoke some unkindness regarding a fault in society which I cannot recall now, that she replied to me in the words of Charles Dicken’s character Jacob Marley, “Mankind is (was) my business.”

I can trace an innumerable number of avoided trespasses, theologically sound thinking, and pursuits of compassion in my life to this one conversation.  Of course mankind is my business! What is the greatest commandment? Christ makes it quite clear: To love the LORD with all your heart, mind, and soul, and the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself.  The whole of the law and the prophets hinge on this truth. I have little more to say on this, for how could I add to such a sharp and beautiful image?

The only way to further this is to talk of the how one might seek better to love, and of no better place have I found learning here than in my marriage.  I have had the privilege of seeing love poured out in patience towards me by my wife on a daily basis since we first met, and can think of no other person who knows me as well in my faults and continues in her love.  She selflessly gives of her day to make the days of my children and I flow smoothly and needlessly. Here I quite simply mean needlessly in that the barest needs rarely come to the surface for the precise and diligent care of my beautiful wife.  Her beauty abounds not only in her physical nature, but within her heart where she emulates the Creator King that she serves. So it is that I get to see love once more poured out and God’s glory abounding in the life of those around me.

Before I come to a close I would point to one further example of God’s love of which I am beyond blessed to experience.  My children are for me a surer sign of not only God’s existence, but of His continued grace and blessing on a humanity that is so steeped in darkness it could never deserved it.  The emotions and realizations that I am given through them continue to spring up every day, and though I took every day to write them down I do not think I could come close to expressing how much of God’s glory is revealed in Him calling us His children.

Thank you for reading, to those of who have made it to the end (though I bear no ill will to those who have not).  I am blessed by you and as I approach 30 and realize it is when my Savior’s ministry began some two thousand years ago I am humbled and ask your help.  May we live in community and love as we yearn towards the end of this earth’s measurement of time. Hold me accountable to this and I will do the same. We are on this road to sanctification and as Christ draws us onward may we love and live as He does and as He has commanded.  God bless!