Thought for Today
2 Samuel 19:35 Today I am eighty years old; can I discern what is pleasant and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats or what he drinks? Can I still listen to the voice of singing men and singing women? Why then should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king?
Psalm 148:12 Young men and women alike, old and young together! 13 Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven.
Acts 2:16 this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17 'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.
In reviewing my words this week, I realized how much I sounded like an old man, dreaming dreams of what was and no longer is. My words resembled Barzillai’s words to the king above from Samuel.
Is it perpetually the truth that as we age we focus more and more on the world we grew up in and less and less on the world around us? Are the dreams of ‘old men’ (and women) consigned to the annuls of history, to the world that was and is no longer? I find the idea, and the consequences, daunting and disappointing. I think that an unhealthy obsession on the past robs Christians of the hope for the future.
During the early days of the pandemic, when isolation and social distancing were introduced, our son and his family instituted the habit of coming over on Wednesday mornings for coffee. Time and schedule permitting, we would have some actual, real human contact (appropriately distanced). Weather permitting, we would sit outside on the patio and enjoy the beauty of God’s Creation and the miracle of morning coffee.
We have maintained Wednesday Coffee ; and, yesterday our son came over. One of the perks of our move to New England and our locale is that sometimes his sister also comes over. Yesterday, she could not; but, on the days she works from home our proximity allows her to sometimes come over for lunch as she did yesterday.
Greta and I are in the process of repairing the winter’s depredations to our yard. Regrettably, last week, I carelessly incurred a serious scrape on my left forearm. A branch and I argued about which one of us was going to occupy an area . . . I lost. Using that scrape as an excuse, yesterday afternoon, we asked our grandson to come over to help us, thereby completing the trifecta of our Wednesday.
For us, it is impossible to overly obsess on the past, the world that was and is no longer, after we spend time with our very accomplished children and their phenomenal children. It is uplifting to be with our children, to hear about what is going on in their lives, to see their accomplishments and successes.
Equally, to be with any or all of our 3 grandchildren is incredible. Our eldest is in graduate school, regrettably far away. The 2 youngest are just graduating from high school. They have chosen their colleges and are eagerly looking forward to the fall. To hear them talk about what lies ahead, to witness their enthusiasm and excitement uplifts our spirits and redirects our own attention to the wonderful potential of the future.
As Christians, we pray each week in worship, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” God certainly does not want us to forget the past, to lose sight of the lives and deeds of our ancestors-in-the-faith. Surely, God does not want us to become mired in a futile effort to recreate that past. Much as I might yearn for what seems like a much simpler world, a more easily comprehensible world, I know that God does not want us to put our lives in reverse and return to that world.
“Genesis 3:24 He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.” Eden and the tree of life are far distant in the rearview mirrors of our collective memories. A return to the idyllic past of the time before the Fall is not part of our journey. That time for which we pray, when God’s will is done on earth, will be idyllic, but it will not be what was, it will be what we, our children and grandchildren and their descendants make it to be. This Thursday, following Wednesday Coffee, I look forward to the unlimited potential of what we and they might create. I have hope!
Stay safe, look forward in hope, trust God,
Pastor Ray