Thought for Today
Psalm 71:18 So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to all the generations to come.
Isaiah 46:4 even to your old age I am he, even when you turn gray I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.
Mark 5:42 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement.
Luke 2:52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.
Even if you are young, you have probably heard, “Age is just a number.” I believed that, even when I was younger. Then, however, I believed that number was a much lower number than I do today. That phrase has become so familiar it is even used in a television commercial I see frequently.
Is it true? Is age just a number? By the way, when we say or hear that phrase, what age are we talking about, our physical age? Our mental age? Our emotional age? Are they all one and the same? How old are you? How old do you feel? Is your mind synchronized with your body on the subject of age?
I do not believe I am uncommon in terms of having a biological/physical age that is different from my mental and emotional ages. Physically, I am 80 years old. Mentally, I feel much the same as that almost 18-year-old about whom I wrote yesterday. It may be self-delusional (I am very adroit at that!), but I do not believe my mental acuity has much declined in the ensuing years. Yes, I know that I repeat some stories more often than I used to; but, that’s only because at my current age, there is a lot more past upon which to dwell than there was at almost 18.
I am not the first to observe that people live in the present, look forward to the future, but dwell in the past. We are, or should be, the sum total of our past experiences. When I worked as an engineer and a manager I was very aware that some people had twenty years of experience and others had one year of experience repeated twenty times. We are meant to live our lives fully, experience God’s gifts of Creation and of our own personal talents and abilities. We are meant to learn and develop our gifts, to gain wisdom through experience. We are meant to use all of those gifts, all of our hard-won skills and wisdom in God’s service.
How old are you? Is age just a number? How are you doing on the living and gaining experience and wisdom scale? How are any of us expected to know the answers? I am not aware of any universally agreed upon metrics by which we can objectively and accurately measure wisdom and maturity, experience and application.
I am a Christian. I have made my own personal confession of faith. I have studied in seminary and been ordained to ministry. For me, the metric of application is the Bible. I evaluate my own wisdom, maturity and age against the Incarnation, ministry, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. Almost everyone who knows me has heard me quote Micah 6:8 and Luke 10:27.
My measure of age, of wisdom, maturity and of my faith is against how well my life reflects justice, kindness, humility, my love of God and my love of my neighbor. Can I ever hope (in this life) to attain the full measure of these metrics that is witnessed in the life of Jesus? Theologians debate whether humans can attain that full measure. I will leave to their debate the theoretical question of its possibility. But, I know that I am not yet at the level to which I aspire. I used to often see and like a t-shirt theological assertion, “Be patient, God’s not finished with me yet.”
I keep reminding myself, God is not finished with me yet. The 80 me is further along the path of God’s way than was that almost 18 me. I have “increased in wisdom and in years,” maybe have made progress “in divine and human favor,” but it is not over yet. As Robert Frost wrote in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep./But I have promises to keep,/And miles to go before I sleep./And miles to go before I sleep.”
How old am I? I am old enough to have promises to keep and miles yet to go before I sleep. How old are you?
Stay safe, relish your years, trust God,
Pastor Ray