Age wearies and the years condemn, but there is hope

I've done a lot of observing of and being with the elderly in recent times. And what I've noticed is that there's a lot of grief for the one who grows old. 

The grief of watching your friends die - it's no source of glory to be the one who outlives your peers and it's very hard to be oh so frail as to be unable to attend their funerals.  The loss of one's driver's license.  Didn't downsize in time?  The grief of losing the family home and so many possessions as circumstances impose the downsizing upon you.  The move to a nursing home that reduces one's possessions to the barest minimum.  The grief of loss of capacity - mental and physical.  The grief of the transformation from independent, functioning, dignified member of society to one totally dependent, like a small child, except knowing of a full life lived independently.    

It was never meant to be this way.  But even in this world, broken by sin, God shows His love and mercy.  Very recently it occurred to me that God has timed the grief of aging perfectly - by putting it at the end.  I know that's a perfectly ridiculous statement to make.  Stating the obvious somewhat.  But let me explain. 

When I was pregnant for the first time I spent a lot of those months predictably concerned about what lay at the end.  The delivery.  And yet, by the time I was eight and a half months pregnant (and it seemed to be 40⁰ every day) I was ready to deliver that baby.  God's perfect design.  Six, seven and eight months was too short to be ready.  Nine months (and then ten days overdue) and I was ready.   That's the microcosm.

The big picture is the span of my years filled to the brim with the stuff of life. Learning, living, loving. And coping with suffering as well. I don't live in Eden and Jesus has not yet returned. The world is fallen. And so there is suffering.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God,  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
Romans 5:1-5

Suffering and grief help me to grow in faith and hope. I hope that I respond with a little more faith and trust in Him with each new grief. I have a lifetime to practice this. And so it occurred to me that God has placed the end of life, so filled with grief and suffering - and there is no way around it...sickness, aging, dying and death are terrible - so that when the span of my years is drawing to its end and I am faced with grief upon grief, I am ready to face it with grace and hope. I observe that you don't get to be a sweet, wise, godly and prayerful old lady (or gentleman) just by being old. It takes a lifetime of sweetness and growing in wisdom, godliness and prayerfulness to bear the grief of old age with grace.  It's not that it's any easier for the sweet ones.  They have learned to bear it well - with hope.

God is good, gracious, kind and wise.  Putting the end at the end was no accident.

All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be...

Search me, O God, and know my heart,
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139:16, 23, 24

Aging and Sanctification

I found this very short talk (it's about four minutes so it really is short) from John Piper about aging and sanctification interesting and helpful. 

At one point he explained that getting older doesn't equal sanctification.  Certain desires - he listed lust and greed for money but you could add all sorts of other things like grabbing for power, covetousness and so on - will likely lessen as a result of aging, sometimes for physiological reasons and sometimes because these things simply become redundant after a certain point in your life.  But just because these desires lessen or even disappear, that doesn't make you holier.  It is a deep seated, growing relationship with Jesus that makes you holy.  So it is important not to be fooled into thinking that you are growing in holiness if the aging process is bringing some of these urges under control.  They would be the hallmarks of growing in holiness but they don't represent holiness in and of themselves.  It seems so obvious as I write it down - but it's good to have teased out the distinction, none the less.

The benefit of aging, he said, is that "your resevoir of past grace is growing."  Lovely.  Your relationship with Jesus is all the more sure and strong because you can look back on an ever increasing collection of moments when you have seen God clearly at work in your life.  That is very steadying.

The unexpected surprise, he said, was that at age 30 he thought that in thirty years time he would be thirty years more kind and thirty years more patient.  But certain sins have remained and that this isn't necessarily the case.   Good to be mindful of this.

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.  May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. 
1 Thessalonians 5:23,24

When I grow old...

Paul says,

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Don Carson, in A Call to Spiritual Reformation (chapter 11...I've nearly finished the book) says,

Sometimes we can see in elderly folk something of the process that Paul has in mind.  We all know senior saints who, as their physical strength is reduced, nevertheless become more and more steadfast and radiant.  Their memories may be fading; their arthritis may be nearly unbearable; their ventures beyond their small rooms or apartments may be severely curtailed.  But somehow they live as if they already have one foot in heaven.  As their outer being weakens, their inner being runs from strength to strength.  Conversely, we know elderly folk who, so far as we can tell, are not suffering from any serious organic decay, yet as old age weighs down on them they nevertheless become more and more bitter, caustic, demanding, spiteful , and introverted.  It is almost as if the civilising restraints imposed on them by cultural expectation are no longer adequate.  In their youth, they had sufficient physical stamina to keep their inner being somewhat capped.  Now, with reserves of energy diminishing, what they really are in their inner being is coming out.

Since spending time reading A Call to Spiritual Reformation I have been thinking a lot about storing up treasure in heaven...

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 
Matthew 6:19,20

...and where my true citizenship is...

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Philippians 3:20

But before heaven there is the rest of life on this earth.  That will include old age, unless Jesus comes again in the next decade or few.  And to that end, when I grow old I so want to be like the dear folk in the first category that Carson describes, and not in that second group. 

Prayer seems to be important in all of this.  Other things too, but prayer is certainly high on the list.   It's not about duty bound, legalistic, fearful, I'd-better-pray-or-else-I'll-end-up-like-a-cranky-old-person type prayer.  It's about growing a vital prayer life over time, founded upon a deep love of God and a joyful, longing desire to see Him glorified in all of our life.

Do we bring our petitions before God both with a proximate goal (that we might receive what we ask for) and with an ultimate goal - that God might be glorified?  For that, surely, is the deepest test: Has God become so central to all our thoughts and pursuits, and thus to our praying, that we cannot easily imagine asking for anything without consciously longing that the answer bring glory to God?
(From right at the end of chapter 11...there's one more chapter and an afterword to go!)

Vital prayer is definitely a long term project.  Good to be thinking about it now. 

Finishing Well and Living Well in the Meantime

When my dad was dying, the last lucid conversation we shared was him reliving an event from the times of my childhood.

Just before my husband's dad died, his last utterance was in his native language, not English.

And it seems that in losing one's memory the short term memory is the first thing affected - the long term memory is stronger.

Why am I thinking about these things? Recently a dear man at church asked me if I would put together a file of verses from Scripture so that he could read them to his wife who is now in care with various conditions including dementia. It was a privilege and a huge responsibility. And it got me wondering...

What Scriptures do I want read to me when I move from independence back into the state of dependence that old age or serious ill health may bring?
Will my knowledge of the Bible and my love of God be strong enough that these things will stay with me when all else goes?
What will I default to when my life is drawing to a close?

In thinking about these things it seems to me that we have the opportunity to finish well. But it means work now - but good work - work that will feed and nurture us now as we prepare for the future. It means being steeped in the Word of God - reading the Bible, praying in its truths, memorising key portions. It means laying solid foundations for the future.

And it seems it IS possible to finish well. Be encouraged in reading this:

John Piper recently recounted his father’s unwavering faith, even in his closing years:
Even in his final years of dementia, he rejoiced. In the last month that he was able to keep a journal (April of 2004), he wrote,

“I’ll soon be 86 but I feel strong and my health is good. God has been exceedingly gracious and I am most unworthy of His matchless grace and patience. The Lord is more precious to me the older I get.”

Read that final line again, slowly. What an amazing sentence—even in the midst of dementia, he felt the increasing preciousness of the presence of Christ.*

It is another example of making use of the good times we have to prepare for the harder times that will surely come upon us. And we can do so with good courage. It says in Lamentations 3:22-27:

"Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself,'The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.'
The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
It is good for a man to bear the yoke
while he is young."

And in being busy about laying good, Biblical foundations,we will surely benefit in the meantime. As we grow in years we become set in our ways. Yes, you young things who read blogs...it is true!!! Alas, it is true. Speaking from my position here in the early forties, one does become set in one's ways. I am, after all, the one who took her own nice mug on holidays for those holiday cups of tea! It's a trivial example, but wouldn't it be good, as we become increasingly set in our ways, to become set in Biblical ways. Just as we have the opportunity to finish well, we also have the opportunity to make our default position one that is Biblical.

A friend's mother put it more plainly. She said, "If I lose my mind, the thing I want to stick is Scripture." Me too.

There is work to do...and it will be a joy.

* Stand: A Call for the Endurance of the Saints, edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor, p. 11 as found on John Piper's Desiring God site.