Growing Young

The changing of the seasons is striking with beauties. Spring brings growth with new life and flowers, summer brings outside activities, fall has beautiful falling leaves of varied colors, and winter though generally darker and colder, brings Christmas and festivities. Like nature, God has blessed us with seasons in life. A person born as infant grows into a youth, then as an adult and pass through middle age and then to old age. Each season is a blessing because you had a chance to live up to that time.

A young child once asked a woman how old she was. She answered, “39 and holding.” The child thought for a moment, then said, “And how old would you be if you let go?”. Most people do not want to acknowledge that they are getting older, even though that is the truth. The world seems to worship youth and is terrified of aging. Old people try to look and act like young. It is a five billion dollar industry that caters to the make up and hair dye business. The modern society has become mostly self-centered and utilitarian where people are looked upon with monetary value. Former Colorado governor, Richard Lamm said in a discussion of spiraling health care costs, that terminally ill elderly people have “a duty to die and get out of the way.” He apologized later. We see heroes as youthful and perfect in form. We don't see superman or batman portrayed with thick glasses nor do we see them with receding hair, or with wrinkles upon their face. Youth and vigor can become dangerous when used without drawing from the experience and wisdom of old age. George Bernard Shaw once said cynically, “Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children?”

When we are young we can't wait to grow up. We can remember while in college thinking that all our problems would be solved after graduation! A degree student said, "If I can just get out of this school which is holding me captive, if I can get a degree and a wife, then I can ride off into the sunset." But our target moves as we grow older. When the kids go to college we think we can settle down and enjoy smooth sailing from there. Not a chance. You get into your middle ages and “mid life crisis” kicks in followed by onset of physical problems. “Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle”, said Bob Hope, the famous American comedian of the last generation. Old age comes with its own problems. You start losing the big circle of friends you once had. Your children and friends who were constantly present in your life have moved away. You look back on old photographs and you miss the days when you could jump high, run fast or throw a ball far! The longer you live, your friends start leaving you to heaven, and you end up having more friends up there in heaven than you have here on earth.

There is a reason why God put seasons in our life. "For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven." (Ecclesiastes 3:1). We gradually lose the strength and beauty that is temporary so we'll be sure to concentrate on the strength and beauty that is eternal. And so we'll be eager to leave the temporary, deteriorating part of us and be truly homesick for our eternal home. If we stayed young and strong and beautiful, we might never want to leave. Mark Twain said, “Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen”. But who wants to die at the young age of 18? It is interesting to observe people who refuse to accept old age. It’s obvious from the lines on their faces and the furrows in their foreheads, but looks odd with a heavily dyed darik beard and full hair. It is a physical impossibility to escape the reality of old age. It is a natural progression of life. It doesnt matter how many vitamins you take, or how well you watch your diet, or how much you exercise - you can’t stop yourself from getting old! George Burns, the comedian who died at the age of 100, said "you know you are getting old when your children start to look middle-aged."

The Psalmist who wrote Psalm 71 is considered to be an older man towards the 'prime time' of life. He prays, "Since my youth, God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation." The Psalmist did not allow himself to sink into a sea of self-pity. He is not naming these problems to wallow in regrets or to live in the past or to be jealous of the young generation. Rather he saw problems as a way of pointing his eyes to a more powerful and faithful God. Old age is called 'prime time' in certain parts of the world and old people are called 'seniors' or 'prime timers.' They have a rich and rewarding experience to learn and talk about the vast experience in life which others do not have. God has reserved special benefits and special responsibilities for those who hold a head full of white or grey hair that shows a life time of lessons learned. "Gray hair is a crown of glory." (Provers 16:31). Fall and winter are just as special to God as the spring season. A wise person once said: “Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.” (Author Unknown).

I heard a young man advising his father that the opposite of old is 'new'. “A little boy playing with his friends in the yard invited his grandmother to come and join. She said, "I’m too old to play those games now." The boy looked up at her and asked, ‘Grandma, when were you ever new?” Moses was eighty years old when he began to lead Israel. Abraham was seventy-five years of age as he obeyed God’s command to leave Haran to a start on a long journey to Canaan. The great evangelist John Wesley rode 350,000 miles on horseback, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. He preached over 40,000 different sermons. At the age of 83 he complained because he could only study the Bible for fifteen hours a day. At the age of 86 he became concerned about his spiritual state because he could not get up at 3 AM for his personal devotion. At 87 he learned his eleventh foreign language. And at 88 he was worried because he could only preach twice a day, six days a week. Another great evangelist, George Muller, is said to have traveled 200,000 miles, using his linguistic ability to preach in several different languages to an estimated three million people around the world. However, Muller’s statistics only began after his seventieth birthday and continued for the next 17 years! Verdi penned his classic ‘Ave Maria’ at age 85, Michelangelo was 87 when he completed ‘The Pietà,’ and Ronald Reagan became US President at 75. As Charles Spurgeon said "they are highly favored who can like David, Samuel, Josiah, Timothy, and others say: Oh God, you are my trust from my youth.”

If God has taken 70, 80 or 90 years to train someone, He definitely has a greater plan for that person. The world is not getting more spiritual, but the opposite. A study by CNN in 2007 reported that 83% people they polled said they never doubted the existence of God. That decreased to 68% in 2012. Data analysts studied by means of 'Ngram', a software analytical tool that is used to build linguistic models reported that faith in God has been decreasing for the last two centuries. Using this tool, you can run visualizations for bigrams and trigrams that start with pronouns. These visual comparisons allow us to see differences in how the two subjects are used - both where they are similar and diverge. For example, among the top 120 trigrams, 'He' and 'She' have many common second words. However, they differ on some interesting ones, for example, only 'he' connects to 'argues', while only 'she' connects to 'love'. Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar and author searched the Ngram database for the words “faith” and “doubt” in American English from 1800 to 2008. He found that during much of the early nineteenth century, 'faith' won out over 'doubt' but in the 20th century 'doubt' won over 'faith'. As we pass on, the need to leave a legacy of faith is now more important than ever to commit just like the Psalmist to “declare His power to the next generation” (Psalm 71:17)

Blessings