Aging Gracefully | Tim Challies

Daily, we’re all constructing the home we are going to reside in when previous age comes.A few of us are constructing a lovely palace. Some are constructing a darkish jail. What are you constructing?

Maybe you’re constructing a home that can show lovely and cozy by way of the lengthy winter of your previous age. You might be adorning it tastefully, filling it with ornaments designed to convey pleasure and luxury within the days to come back—deeds of gratitude and beauty, acts of generosity and selfless love. On each wall, you’re hanging photos which can be as significant as they’re lovely—heat friendships in Christ, mentoring and discipling relationships, kids and grandchildren who know and love the Lord. They give the impression of being down upon you to consolation, to cheer, to encourage. You’ve stockpiled provides of godliness and beauty to make sure you’ll be full and fed, trustworthy within the days of weariness. You’ve gathered nice shops of God’s Phrase to gasoline the hearth, to maintain it blazing brightly by way of the lengthy winter days and nights. You’ve ready a snug mattress the place you may lie and relaxation. As you draw your final breaths, it is possible for you to to look out of your mattress to see these ornaments, these work, that lifetime of valuable treasure, and you’ll know: You’ve lived a significant life.

Or maybe you’re constructing your self a home that can show little greater than a chilly, gloomy jail by way of the lengthy winter of your previous age. You might be adorning it with ugliness and kitsch—meaningless achievements, evil deeds, self-righteous works. You might be protecting the partitions with grotesque photos—dangerous friendships, damaged relationships, kids and grandchildren who’re wanton and rebellious. They give the impression of being down upon you to hang-out you, to sentence you, to fill you with concern and sorrow. You’ve stocked sparse provides to feed upon within the days of weariness, leaving you to chew on bitterness, remorse, and a thousand empty vices. You’ve gathered little of God’s Phrase to gasoline the hearth, so it is going to burn low and extinguish, leaving you chilly and depressing. You’ve ready a mattress of thorns the place you’ll lie and desperately attempt to relaxation. As you draw your final breaths, you’ll look out of your painful mattress to see these terrible ornaments, these darkish work, that lifetime of piled remorse, and you’ll know: You’ve wasted your life.

Which home are you constructing? Are you constructing a palace or a jail? Are you constructing a spot of pleasure, consolation, and safety, or a spot of grief, sorrow and peril? Daily you’re laying the bricks to your property. From childhood you will have been adorning it. With every passing day you add new ornaments and also you inventory—or don’t inventory—it for days to come back. And because the winter of your life approaches, you’ll take up residence in the home you will have constructed. So I ask once more, which home are you constructing?(*)

A Deep Worry, a Deep Longing

There are specific behaviors I’ve been conditioned to concern since childhood. I noticed folks act in sure methods, I noticed the results of their actions, and I made a decision that I might by no means do these issues. I made a decision I might not be like these folks.

As a toddler I noticed the abuse of alcohol. I noticed full-out drunkenness in all its ugliness, all its disgrace. I noticed it in folks I cherished, folks in my prolonged household. I noticed how they behaved, I noticed how others handled them, I noticed how their reputations crumbled. At the same time as a toddler and a teen, I discovered myself so cautious of alcohol that it by no means was engaging to me. Even at present I don’t drink, and it’s not as a result of I’ve a biblical case towards alcohol. It’s that I’m simply not . I by no means have been.

Since childhood, I’ve additionally been conditioned to concern getting older poorly. I noticed aged individuals who behaved shamefully, who displayed so little of the dignity that should be related to age. I noticed previous girls who have been embittered, who appeared to haven’t any actual level or objective to their lives. I noticed previous males who have been drunks, who have been perverts, who have been stuffed with resentment towards God. After all, I noticed optimistic examples as properly, expensive previous women and men who cherished each other, who cherished Jesus greater than something, who exemplified godliness and beauty. A few of them I knew and a few I met of their books or their biographies. I developed a concern of getting older poorly and a deep longing to age properly.

Once I was nonetheless younger I resolved that I might age with grace. I might not be a grimy previous man, an embittered previous man, a drunken previous man, a purposeless previous man. I made up my mind that in previous age I might be dignified and godly, I might exemplify character and purposeful residing to the top. Even then, I understood that this decision would wish to form my whole life. I couldn’t reside a dissolute life and anticipate God to grant me a present of godliness on my sixty fifth birthday. I couldn’t reside an apathetic or lukewarm life and anticipate a purposeful, significant previous age. If I needed to be godly then, I’d have to study to be godly now. If I needed to reside these days with objective, I might first have to reside as of late with objective. For these causes and plenty of extra, the topic of getting older is particularly valuable to me.

Aging and Previous Age

It is very important distinguish right here between getting older and previous age. Whereas previous age is the place, getting older is the method—the method of hard-fought, small investments remodeled time that decide our remaining place. My goal on this article and some to comply with is to convey consideration to getting older: the common and lifelong actuality that from the second of start we’re rising older, that from our first breath we’re progressing towards our final breath, that our each resolution is culminating into the previous man or previous lady we’ll be. Aging is the sprint on the tombstone, the little line that in its progress from left to proper, from the enjoyment of start to the sorrow of loss of life, encapsulates a complete life. Aging comes with many sorrows and plenty of joys, and in between them are the tasks we are able to select to embrace or ignore.

I’ve written this with many tears—tears sufficient to shock me and to indicate how deeply I really feel this topic, how a lot it has been a observe enjoying within the background of my life, how a lot it stays a deep need. These are tears of sorrow for wasted alternatives, tears of pleasure for evidences of undeserved grace, tears of hope that God will grant my prayers. For there are few longings in my coronary heart deeper than this: that God would let me reside a godly, purposeful, dignified previous age.

Via just a few articles, I imply to discover what the Bible says about getting older. Finally, I wish to encourage each you and me to age gracefully, to age correctly, to age resolutely to the glory of God.

* Impressed by Week-day Faith by J.R. Miller.