{"id":2003,"date":"2010-09-06T12:08:34","date_gmt":"2010-09-06T19:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=2003"},"modified":"2018-08-31T07:27:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T14:27:15","slug":"i-used-to-be-twenty-six","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2010\/i-used-to-be-twenty-six\/","title":{"rendered":"I Used to Be Twenty-Six"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I look back twenty-six years to when I was twenty-six years old. I was mature for my age then. As I close in on the end of my second batch of twenty-six, I think I&#8217;m now less mature for my age. But now I got sidetracked from the purpose of this post.<\/p>\n<p>When I reached my twenty-sixth birthday&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-top:-1em\">\n<li>I had been a husband for five years.<\/li>\n<li>We had two children &#8212; LaVay (3) and Russell (close to 1).<\/li>\n<li>I was just into my fifth year of teaching high school at our church school.<\/li>\n<li>I had just begun my second year as principal at that school.<\/li>\n<li>It had been about 2.5 years since we had temporarily &#8220;retired&#8221; as Mexico missionaries.<\/li>\n<li>I didn&#8217;t own a house, because I was trying to lay up treasures in heaven.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Over the next eight years, I added more to My Accomplishments.<\/p>\n<p>Alas, I also added to My Pride, at least on the inside.<\/p>\n<p>But inside or out, that affliction portends bad things to come. Always.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"verse\">&#8220;&#8230;God resisteth the proud&#8230;&#8221;<\/span> (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5).<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"verse\">&#8220;When pride cometh, then cometh shame&#8230;&#8221;<\/span> (Proverbs 11:2).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Since the bad harvest of pride often doesn&#8217;t come right away, we get careless and carefree with pride.<\/p>\n<p>Then we pay the price.<\/p>\n<p>Now, twenty-six years later and having tasted its bitter fruit, do I still struggle with pride?<\/p>\n<p>Sure. But now I recognize the struggle (most of the time). And I engage the battle (more of the time).<\/p>\n<p>I loathe pride. And in a healthy way (I think), I fear pride.<\/p>\n<p>When I find myself embracing it, I try to come to my senses and push it away in repentance.<\/p>\n<p>I have experienced pride&#8217;s wrecking ball.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"verse\">&#8220;Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall&#8221;<\/span> (Proverbs 16:18).<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"verse\">&#8220;Before destruction the heart of man is haughty&#8230;&#8221;<\/span> (Proverbs 18:12).<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"verse\">&#8220;A man\u2019s pride shall bring him low&#8230;&#8221;<\/span> (Proverbs 29:23).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-content\/the-proud-he-knoweth-afar-off.jpg\" alt=\"The proud He knoweth afar off (Psalm 138:6)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3795\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-content\/the-proud-he-knoweth-afar-off.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-content\/the-proud-he-knoweth-afar-off-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-content\/the-proud-he-knoweth-afar-off-400x300.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-content\/the-proud-he-knoweth-afar-off-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>So many of My Accomplishments have gone to nothing. And so many of My Opportunities have evaporated.<\/p>\n<p>What a waste!<\/p>\n<p>Yup, I have paid dearly, though not yet fully.<\/p>\n<p>Would I like a do-over? In a sense, my answer really doesn&#8217;t matter. The stark reality is that I don&#8217;t get to try again. That part of my life is gone, gone, gone.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe God will give me an opportunity to do better tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>I hope so.<\/p>\n<p>If He does, may I allow His Spirit to continue to craft in me in the mind of Christ so that the Father may see in me at least a faint image of His Son.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>a lesson learned in the second batch of twenty-six years<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,12,20],"tags":[72,894,880],"class_list":["post-2003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity-101","category-lessons-for-living","category-youve-been-warned","tag-christianity","tag-inspirational","tag-life-lessons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-wj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}