July 29, 2022
Last week we celebrated two milestone birthdays in my extended family. Elizabeth's grandmother Frances (Mary Frances Smith's mother) turned 100 years old on Wednesday - or in her own words, "100 year young"! We celebrated with her family and friends in Starkville, her hometown. Then on Sunday my father Dale turned 70, and we were able to be in Hot Springs, Arkansas, to celebrate with him. We had a great time remembering the goodness of God to both, and to us through them.
It's not often that someone reaches the century mark (if by the grace of God I do, it will be the year 2076, which seems a lifetime away, and is in fact longer away than I've already been alive!), though I imagine the majority of us will likely reach seventy. As Moses reminds us in Psalm 90:10, "The years of our life are seventy, or even by reasons of strength eighty..." But the second half of that verse is disconcerting: "...yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away." Life is short, even when you live to be 100. And life is difficult, even if you die in your youth. At every stage, as Jay Adams puts it in his unfortunately-titled book, Wrinkled But Not Ruined: Counsel for the Elderly, aging is a process of loss. And it's frustrating, even scary, to lose things.
But the Bible has much to say about how we should approach aging.
With a desire for spiritual growth and a heart filled with gratitude till our very last breath: "The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the LORD is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him" (Psalm 92:12-15). We're never too old to grow in our knowledge of God and His word, never too old to start putting off sin and putting on righteousness, never too old to be transformed by His truth and grace. And at every point throughout our life, God is upright, God is our rock, and God is righteous in all His ways.
With intentionality in our ministry: "Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored" (Titus 2:3-5). What Paul says explicitly to women is certainly implied to men, mentioned in 2:2 - the more mature are to instruct, encourage, counsel, and mentor the less mature. Experience and wisdom must be passed down to the next generation, along with the truth of God's word and the duties God requires of us.
With confidence in your future hope: "Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal" (II Corinthians 4:16-18). As our bodies wear down and wear out, we know that God continues to renew and transform our inner person into the likeness of Jesus. And so with courage and faith we stare death in the face, knowing that we have a hope beyond this life, a hope that is unseen now but will be seen in due time, and will remain forever in Christ.
I could go on and on from God's word about aging. But whether we reach 70 or 100, we have a duty to God and to our neighbor. In the words of Archibald Alexander in his little work Aging in Grace, "We may be no longer qualified for those labors which require much bodily strength – we may, indeed, be so debilitated or crippled by disease, that we can scarcely move our crazy frame – and some among us may be vexed with excruciating pain – yet still we have a work to perform for God, and for our generation." May the Lord grant us to serve Him all our days, until we see Him face to face!