51 Weeks...

Last week, I celebrated my 29th birthday...my last birthday of my twenties.  I love birthdays, but the realization that I, not just other people, will be 30 years old has become a reality and been on my mind for the past week.  I have 51 weeks until I am 30 years old.

I think of my expectations for where, as a silly teenager, college student, and young adult, I thought my life would be as I approached the big three-oh.  Life has taken a hugely different (and better, I believe) track, yet I've had to give up my expectations for myself in favor of God's plans and path for me.  I've realized this week that my expectations have truly become an idol in my heart, that I cling to these beliefs that I've created and get angry at God for pushing and challenging me to live beyond my small-minded plans for myself.

This is the verse that's burning my heart this week, from my new favorite book in the Bible, Habakkuk (say that 10 times fast!):

"What profit is an idol
   when its maker has shaped it,
   a metal image, a teacher of lies?
For its maker trusts in his own creation
   when he makes speechless idols!"
--Hab 2:18

Ouch!  While God is speaking to disobedient, idolatrous Israel, through Habakkuk, as Babylon gains power, I can't help but see how relevant these verses are to me today.  When I trust my plans more than God's plans, I am making myself my own creator, making idols that go deep into my heart, blocking out God from showing up in my life and giving me his blessings and burdens.

So what does this all mean?

Some folks make a list of things they want to do in the year before they turn 30....I decided that this is not my route.  Besides, the only thing I could really think of putting on the list was going back to Haiti.  I decided on something very different.

I decided that I have no expectations for the next year, except to live with boldness for God and to seek first His kingdom. 

I had never prayed for boldness for myself until I was preparing to leave for Haiti, and looking back, I see that I have been selling God and myself short.  Think about all of the ways God is bold...Love.  Grace.  Forgiveness.  Service.  Prayer and the Word.  Generosity.  That's the kind of boldness I want, for the next year of my life and every year God gives me past that.

And who knows?  I think by living in God's boldness, I'm going to do some really fun, amazing, crazy, awesome things that might end up on a 'pre-thirty list' anyways! :)