October 17, 2023
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, “The Lord is upright; he is my Rock.”—Psalm 92:12–15
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The world tells us aging is our enemy, and we should fight it; the Bible says it’s our friend: “Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days” (Job 12:12).
Let’s be real—aging doesn’t feel very friendly. Change is disorienting, because we settle into our roles and responsibilities and they become our identity and purpose. And now we face almost daily changes of diminishing physical abilities and energy.
We need something bigger and better to make sense of it all. We need an identity and purpose that transcends it all, which is exactly what God provides in the gospel. The gospel is big enough, good enough, and powerful enough to make every moment of every season of life significant and glorious.
The one who created us promises we can flourish and bear fruit, we can be full of sap and green, even in old age (Psalm 92:12–14). These lively words indicate growth and vitality. They seem to contradict my reality as an eighty-year-old who suffers with inflammation of the connective tissue in my body that causes pain and weakness in my muscles. But this promise of growth does not mock my physical reality; it transcends it.
The gospel imperative to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18) does not have an age limit. The same grace that gives us new life in Christ empowers that life to develop, mature, and flourish. We never finish growing. There is always more grace to experience and more to know of Christ’s love. This growth is gradual. We don’t produce it, but as we trust and obey God’s Word, we can anticipate it.
The psalmist’s unbridled joy in God is contagious. His God-centeredness is compelling.
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think about God? Our answer is one of the most important things about us because it reveals the arc of our life. It determines the choices we make and shows whether we understand that our identity is not based on what we do but on who we are in Christ. The psalmist leaves no doubt that his knowledge of God is not a product of his imagination or his circumstances; it is the product of God’s revelation of himself in His Word.—Sharon W. Betters and Susan Hunt1
I never thought I would live to be this old.
All my life I was taught how to die as a Christian, but no one ever taught me how I ought to live in the years before I die. I wish they had because I am an old man now, and believe me, it’s not easy. …
No, old age is not for sissies. But that isn’t the whole story, nor did God intend for it to be.
While the Bible doesn’t gloss over the problems we face as we grow older, neither does it paint old age as a time to be despised or a burden to be endured with gritted teeth (if we still have any). Nor does it picture us in our latter years as useless and ineffective, condemned to spend our last days in endless boredom or meaningless activity until God finally takes us home.
Instead the Bible says that God has a reason for keeping us here; if He didn’t, He would take us to Heaven far sooner. But what is His purpose for these years, and how can we align our lives with it? How can we not only learn to cope with the fears and struggles and growing limitations we face but also actually grow stronger inwardly in the midst of these difficulties? How can we face the future with hope instead of despair?
These are some of the questions I have been forced to deal with as I have grown older; perhaps the same is true of you as well. …
Someday our life’s journey will be over. In a sense we all are nearing home. As we do so, I pray that you and I may not only learn what it means to grow older but, with God’s help, also learn to grow older with grace and find the guidance needed to finish well. …
Growing old has been the greatest surprise of my life. The young live for the here and now. Thinking ahead seems to be in the form of dreams that promise fairy-tale endings. Though I am nearing ninety-three, it doesn’t seem so long ago that I was one of those dreamers, filled with great expectation, planning a life that would satisfy my every desire. Since there were few things in life that I loved more than baseball, as a young man I dedicated myself to the sport and hoped that my passion for the game would lead me straight to the major leagues. My goal was simple: stand at home plate, with bat in hand, immersed in an important game.
I often pictured myself hitting a big-league grand slam into the stadium seats and hearing the crowd roar with thunder as I ran the bases—nearing home.
I never would have guessed what lay in store. After giving my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ—repenting of my sin and putting my entire life into His hands—I laid down my dreams, along with my bat, and fully embraced God’s plan by faith, trusting that He would lead me all the way. He did, He is, and He will.
As I look back, I see how God’s hand guided me. I sense His Spirit with me today, and most comforting is the knowledge that He will not forsake me during this last stretch as I am nearing home.—Billy Graham2
While the aging process can bring about difficulties, it also brings some things which from a Christian perspective can be seen as blessings. For example, with age comes a lessening of physical and perhaps some mental strength; however, this can result in a deeper relationship with God and can lead to greater spiritual strength. The apostle Paul experienced some kind of weakness or affliction (a thorn in the flesh) which God didn’t remove, even though Paul sought deliverance from it.
“Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:7–10).
As we age and our body becomes weaker, we can learn from Paul’s teaching and apply the principles which he expressed—that in weakness we can become strong, that God’s grace is there for us in time of need, and that Jesus’ power will rest upon us in our weakness. Though the way in which the Lord uses us may change as we age and our strength and stamina lessen, the power of Christ will still rest upon us, and He can use us to share His message and love with others.
The apostle Paul also wrote about some measure of weakness in his body which seemed to be continually increasing. “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16–18).
It is inevitable that as we grow older our physical body will age, weaken, and eventually die. However, our “inner man,” our spirit, is renewed day by day, and it will never die. As we age, we can expect physical decline; however, we can look forward to continual inner renewal and spiritual growth as we faithfully draw near to God, and He draws near to us (James 4:8).
As we age, we will likely be faced with age-related challenges that will bring some hardships for which we will need to trust God. Such circumstances will call for us to pray and put our trust in the Lord while seeking Him for the right solution for the challenges we face. As the aging process causes a weakening of our bodies, we can ask Him for the grace and strength to live in a manner that glorifies and praises Him.
The apostle Paul compares our human bodies to tents and points out that “in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling” (2 Corinthians 5:2). He wrote that we, as believers “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). The older we get, the more we will long for our resurrection bodies, which we will be given upon Christ’s return—bodies which will be very different from the weak “tents” we are presently living in.—Peter Amsterdam
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It is at the end of life, not only at the beginning, that Christians are most different from the rest of the world. Then the true beauty of a woman, the true character of a man, is seen for what it really is. That is why there sometimes seems to be a touch of glory and light about the lives of elderly Christians. They have remained “fresh and green” as Psalm 92 suggests, because their hearts have been given to the Lord in worship. ... True worship puts character into our lives, humility into our bearing, strength and confidence into our witnessing. … Let us learn to worship God, with the faithfulness and joy of the author of Psalm 92.—Sinclair Ferguson3
Published on Anchor October 2023. Read by Gabriel Garcia Valdivieso. Music by Michael Dooley.
1 Sharon W. Betters and Susan Hunt, Aging with Grace: Flourishing in an Anti-Aging Culture (Crossway, 2021).
2 Billy Graham, Nearing Home: Life, Faith, and Finishing Well (Thomas Nelson, 2011).
3 Sinclair Ferguson, A Heart for God (NavPress, 1985).
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