It's the eve of my 18th birthday, and my feelings are bittersweet.  

On the one sense, it's exciting.  It's the big "eighteen" and all, and when compared to seventeen, it sounds so much older.  I know it's just another day that will go by, but for me, it signifies another year that has passed in my life.  Another year that I've spent miserably failing in my sin, and yet, hopefully also a year that has grown my understanding of the Lord.  Of His love and mercy, of His amazing grace, and of His vast glory and power.

It also means another year that I get closer to heaven.

I don't write about this often, but it's something that is on my mind a lot.  Every day that goes by, every hour spent, brings me closer to the day when I'll meet Jesus.  And honestly, that thought used to terrify me.  It still does sometimes, but I think it's more fear of the unknown than anything.  A few months ago, I would constantly wrestle with the fact that I wasn't worthy to live in God's place.  That I spent too much time wasting my life on things which don't really matter at all, and that sin was all too often my master.  And trust me, I still have to struggle with these kind of things every day - in fact, my own sin overwhelms me and the hardest person that I have to, and ever will, deal with...is myself.

But I'm comforted when I read Proverbs, or my pastor talks about sanctification - for I know that the Lord tests me and brings me to my knees for a reason.  "For the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in who he delights" (Proverbs 3:12).

Still, I don't know why God chose me to be His child - why He would want someone like me to share eternity with.  But oh, I can't wait for the day!  Where there will be no more struggles with sin, no more suffering, no more sorrow...just rejoicing and singing and praising, and basking of the love of my Savior.  But until then, I'm to use my time for the Lord.  All of it.  For man's chief end is to, "glorify God, and enjoy Him forever" (Westminster Shorter Catechism).

In a way, this is kind of something dark to think about - but we honestly take for granted how little time we truly have.  If I think these past few years have flown by, I can't imagine what the next ten, twenty, and so on years will feel like.

And so that's why eighteen feels old to me.  But yet, at the same time, it also sounds really, really young.

I see where I'm at now, and then I see where I need to be...and I sometimes just weep.  I have so much I need to learn, so much I have to do, so much I have to grow.  The term "barely scratched the surface" doesn't even cover it - it's more like "barely even, hardly, maybe slightly sniffed the surface" of what I could learn from God's word.

But, at the same time, this is actually really exciting.  Because I'm saved and because I'm a child of God, I can go read His word...and learn.  I can go discover the truths taught in the Bible.   I can go gain the "wisdom and understanding" that is always talked about all through Proverbs.  And because I'm so young?  I have that many more years, Lord willing, to do it.

And so, on the eve of my eighteenth birthday, this is what I think about.  I don't know why, but I do know this - "the Lord has made everything for its purpose" (Proverbs 16:4).  John Piper says it well:

"Your life is in God’s hands and hangs by a thread of sovereign grace. God owns every soul. He made us and we belong to him by virtue of his being our Creator. He can give and take life as he pleases according to his infinite wisdom, and he never does anyone any wrong. He created human life, and he decides what human life is for... 

So if you ask me tonight, All right, tell us then, what is the unwasted life? What does it look like? What is the essence of the unwasted life? I just mentioned it: A life that puts the infinite value of Christ on display for the world to see. The passion of the unwasted life is to joyfully display the supreme excellence of Christ by the way we live. Life is given to us so that we can use it to make much of Christ...

The great passion of the unwasted life is to magnify Christ. Here is the text that, perhaps more than any other, governs what life is really about: Philippians 1:20-21. Paul says, 'It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death...'

So I ask all of you now, are you going to throw your life away with the rest of the world by striving to minimize your suffering and maximize your comforts in this life? Are you going to work for the bread that perishes? Build bigger barns? Lay up treasures on earth? Strive for the praise of man? 

Or will you see in Christ crucified and risen, bearing the sins of his people—will you see in this God-Man the all-satisfying treasure of your life? Will you say with Paul, 'To live is Christ and to die is gain . . . I count everything as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord'?"

God bless,
~Kristin