10 Years of Glory

10 years ago I received this Bible on the birthday that marked my last year as a teen (thanks, Becca 💕). Today, I enter my last year in my 20s.

I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, but there is a legitimate sadness to growing up and old importances fading away. I’ve accepted with a heavy heart that it is right and good for our finite nature to force us to let go of attachments to places, once dear friendships, and even the remembrance of our memories. As much as I desperately want to, my arms and hands aren’t big enough to carry them all and they slip through my fingers as the years go by. 

While some slight grieving is warranted, I look on my 20s and know that what I’ve gained during this time is of infinite worth. I’m not talking about the jobs I’ve had, the friends I’ve cherished, or even the precious family I’ve gained, though they have all been undeserved blessings from God’s hand. 

What I have had in the 10 years I’ve held this Bible, is a decade of glory. Some time in 2013 my eyes, once blind to the treasures and beauty of God, were opened to all that I had previously been unable to see. Namely, visions of 

• the hopeless state of my dead soul without God, an enemy in high-handed rebellion against the King, a slave to sin

• the blazing holiness of God and his perfect justice to dole out just punishments under his divine prerogative, his astounding patience and forgiveness in light of his righteousness

• the great and perfect rescue through which I was plucked out of the dominion of darkness and my feet firmly planted in the kingdom of light

• the impossibility of the divine Creator selflessly entering into creation as a man and allowing himself to be murdered for the sake of his murderers, that the sustainer of life could even be subjected to the humility of death

• the riches of grace which have been lavished on me through Jesus Christ - my justification, the imputation of his righteousness on my sorry frame, the Fathers adoption of me, my slow sanctification, the promised glorification and co-heirship with the Son of God

• his never-ending steadfast loving kindness which carries us from life to eternity with comfort and help 

• how his perfect truth has sustained his saints through the ages, and how it is the only solid ground on which to stand through the sands of time

• the great meta narrative of all things being through Christ, to Christ, and for Christ, and the joy of forgetting oneself and submitting to his great commission and coming kingdom 

• the sufficiency of God’s Word to inform wise thinking for every issue in our age

The glory of God in his Word, in the Spirit’s working, has been poured out over me this past decade. This is a real list of all the things revealed to me, like silk covers being pulled off display cases one after another. I have enjoyed both deep understanding and bewilderment at the vastness and goodness of our God. Every day he reveals himself as more perfect and more wise than I can comprehend. There is yet still so much more to anticipate, a lifetime and an eternity of gazing into this blinding glory, and of knowing and being known by our Heavenly Father.