Oak Hill Baptist Church © 2008-
I am beginning to enjoy things I can no longer do.
In typical American fashion, my life has been fairly active physically. I have enjoyed hiking and jogging and softball and basketball and a variety of other sports. I have coached my kids in soccer and baseball and helped them in just about any activity they were inclined to try.
The years have taken away my ability to participate in most of these activities in any appreciable way. Reflexes and stamina and joints and new techniques and a host of other circumstances combine to make most of such things impossible. My cross country skis lean against a wall in the basement. Twenty baseballs are in a box in the garage, formerly used to pitch to my son and his teams. I no longer own shoes dedicated to soccer. The practice equipment and coaching manuals have been passed on to more youthful bodies.
One would expect to be nostalgic about such a decline. I am entering the last third (Lord willing) of my life. The days behind are far more than the days ahead. For many people a sense of desperation sets in. They become bitter or try to recapture a measure of youth or go into denial with a face lift here and creative combing there. For others the choice is resignation. “Give me the TV remote, a daily meal out for my expanding waistline and some leisure to run about the country, and I will go quietly,” seems to be the outlook.
Perhaps the truth of Psalm 90 is at work here. “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (v. 14). If our Lord is truly satisfying, should not this be our experience throughout life? Satisfaction in youth helps choose wisely career and spouse and child rearing and lifestyle. Satisfaction in middle age helps confront change and difficulty in those same aspects of daily living, a firewall against the traps and temptations of this world. Looking back realistically at all that satisfaction sets the table for the last third.
I have had numerous examples to follow. My parents continue to bike and work out regularly in a college health center. They attend church and Bible studies with much younger folk. They pursue personal interests like quilting and chess. They work through a variety of trials and the occasional spat, leaning on each other. Oak Hill has a wonderful group of senior saints who have not begun to put down their Bibles and paint brushes and smiles and prayers and checkbooks and willing wisdom. So the road is marked clearly.
Satisfaction is good. It seeps down deep into every corner of one’s heart and mind.
Satisfaction looks back with few regrets because nothing is regrettable about God.
He forgives. He cleanses. He guides. He uses. He fills…marvelously. If you are older
than I, thanks. I really, really appreciate your example. If you are my generation,
measure well your soul. You don’t have much time left to make changes. If you are
young, listen to a soon-