Aging and Useful

 People age. Some are blessed to live eighty and ninety years. I recently heard about a former parishioner celebrating her 92nd birthday. I have never met anyone who read the Bible more than that lady. The competitive side of me tried to keep up with her. I could not, getting bogged down by other demands. Doris has been a faithful follower of Jesus for many years. So is Jeanette and Roberta who both still taught well into their eighties and nineties. I think of several senior adult men, most in their eighties, still mowing the lawn of their church weekly. 

I think of the deacon from another community celebration his 82nd year on horseback working cattle during his retirement. There is also the faithful pastor who still serves his flock after 50 years in his late seventies going strong. He is an icon in that community. 

No matter how a person tries to fight it, nobody can fight aging. It happens to rich, poor, black, white and all others. It is part of the human journey. We make additional trips around the sun. With each trip we add another year to our life journey. The hair line recedes and or turns grey. Muscles atrophy. The skin wrinkles. The eyes dim and the hearing fades. The joints ache. All while the world changes and seems so foreign they grew up in. 

I am not interested in the fact that we age. I am interested in how we age. Do we continue to grow? Are committed to following Jesus fully in our old age? Do we desire to be useful to the very end? Are we still eager to learn new truths? Do we still yearn to know more of God? Are we burdened to make Him known to the lost around us? Do we still peruse the tattered pages of Bibles worn out from years of use? I know one man who carries a Bible with no front or back cover. He wore it out and does not want to buy another one. 

Just because we age does not mean we cease being useful in the hands of God. Age is not an excuse for not growing and serving. Read this carefully. THERE IS NO RETIREMENT IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD! We may retire from our vocations, but that only means we are freed to devote all our time to serving God in some way. There is no retirement from growing and building a strong faith. There is absolutely no retiring from prayerfully covering our families in prayer and passing the baton of our faith to the next generations. I know a man in his mid sixties who has been teaching children for over 40 years and loves it. He has no intention of stopping. 

When the preacher George Muller reached retirement age and started handing over more of the day to day operations at the church and orphanages he served, he spent the next years of his life making several world preaching tours. He used the latter years of his life to continue his life long habit of Bible reading. He read through it a hundred times while reading on his knees. Before that, he read it through 100 times. He read through the Bible over 200 times in 90 plus years on planet earth. What an inspiration. 

Leonard Ravenhill prayed eight hours a day in the last decades of his life, wrote ferociously, lead a Friday night prayer meeting and Bible study that lasted until the wee hours of the morning, as well as preached in revival conferences. In addition, he met and mentored young pastors. He did not cease until a stroke took his voice and mobility away just before he died at 87. 

Vance Havner preached well into his eighties and wrote dozens of books in the twilight years of his life. He wrote a powerful one about grief after his wife died titled, Though I Walk Through The Valley. He did not use old age as an excuse to not grow and serve God with a whole heart. One person commented about him, "He is the preacher who will not quit." He started preaching at 12 and never learned to drive. He remained faithful to the end. 

Fanny Crosby wrote hymns. She lived to be 95 and used her time well. She is credited with writing over 8,000 songs. There are 100 million in print today. She did not stop there. She taught. She did mission work. And by the way, she was blind. She also wrote over 1,000 secular poems. She never quit growing and serving. 

Amy Carmichael lived to the ripe age of 84. She served as a missionary in India for 55 years without ever taking furlough. During that time she founded an orphanage and took in numerous orphans. She also wrote numerous books. She did much for the Lord even in her old age with failing health. 

Lottie Moon lived to be 82. She lived and served in China for close to 40 years loving, serving and sharing Jesus with the Chinese people. Her letters sent back home promoting the mission work led to the starting of the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering taken up each Christmas season. Her legacy lives on. 

Bertha Smith also served as a missionary to China. At 70 she was forced to retire, but still worked 15 hours days. She had been on the field for 42 years. What did she do in retirement? She traveled the world and spoke in churches promoting Jesus and missions for another 29 years. She was 99 when she died. 

I could go on. There is no excuse. We all age. Our desire to know and serve God should never wane. Many churches and pastors have little regard for senior adults, other than the money they can get out of them to finance new fangled ministries or facilities expansion. I am not one of those. I treasure senior adults. I recognize they were once young, active, beautiful or handsome. They still have value. They are tough. They have weathered some of the hardest things life could throw at them. Some grew up in the Great Depression years. Many fought for this country on foreign soil. Some survived tragic days of a presidential assassination, the energy crisis, Pearl Harbor, World War II, Vietnam and The Persian Gulf War. They also watched people travel in space, two space shuttle disasters, the 911 Terror Attack and multiple violent school and church mass shootings. During all of that, they walked with God, learned of His faithfulness, and grew in their faith. Some survived the death of children and spouses. They still have value. They have much wisdom to share. They may be aging, like the rest of us and slowing down a little, but they are still useful! May we follow their example to the very end of our lives!