How old are you when you’re too old to be useful? In a day when physical beauty and supreme health are prized so highly it’s no wonder that many begin to question their worth as they grow older. But as everyone knows physical beauty and health are temporary things. For every person they will eventually fade and fail.

 

            The Bible teaches us that there is much more to life than looking good and feeling good. We are told that Absalom was the best looking man in Israel (2 Samuel 14:25) yet he died an ignoble death opposing God’s anointed, his own father (2 Samuel 18). As for the beauty and charm of a woman the Bible says “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30). It’s fine and well to look your best and be in your best possible health. But to pursue these things to the neglect of the soul is foolish. And to wonder if you have anything to offer because your outside isn’t what it used to be is pitiable. Know that “the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7). When that was said of David he was a young, strong, good looking man. Which tells us that at every stage of life, God is concerned with the heart. The Bible says that “When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless’“ (Genesis 17:1). At ninety-nine or so you may not be able to walk as well as you once did, but you can still walk before the Lord.  James A. Garfield once wrote, “If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old.” And Douglas McArthur said, “Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair … these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.”

 

            How we grow old is far more important than how old we grow. So how should we grow old?

 

·        God wants us to grow old wisely.
Job said, “Wisdom is with aged men, with long life is understanding” (Job 12:12). The lessons of hardship, success and failure we learn in life should be passed on to the younger. And hopefully the younger will have just enough wisdom to listen.

 

·        God wants us to grow old righteously.
“A gray head is a crown of glory; it is found in the way of righteousness” (Proverbs 16:31). God bless the older man or woman who, day by day, grows more closely into the likeness of Christ.

 

·        God wants us to grow old serving Him.
Luke tells us of Anna who, at the age of 84 “never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers” (Luke 2:37). Someone once said, “All I can do is pray.” All I can do? My how we underestimate prayer!

 

·        God wants us to grow old trusting Him.
God promised to His people “Even to your old age I will be the same, and even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you; and I will bear you and I will deliver you” (Isaiah 46:4).

 

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”
(Psalm 90:12)

 

God bless you,

Brad Fry