We’re all growing older. Some of us are growing old. There’s a big difference. Older is one thing. Old, quite another.
Getting older can be fun. Just ask the four-year-old who just can’t wait to be a grown-up five. Or the fourteen-year-old, who’s impatient for birthday sixteen to arrive.
But old? Well, there are certain ages that set off some alarm bells, at least for those whose hearing is still acute enough to pick up the sound. Just listen. See if you can hear when the bells begin to ring. Age 21. Age 35. Three-score and ten. Octogenarian. It’s those last two ages that set the alarms to clanging.
Anyone who has lived long enough to grow old should be wise enough to know it’s frittering away time to fret about having thicker lenses in eyeglasses, or that stair steps are much steeper than they used to be. True, an aging body can play dirty tricks on us, but a worn-out attitude and tired spirit can be even more threatening.
One nasty risk factor that’s just waiting to pounce on anybody whose birthday cake has a large enough number of candles on it, for lack of a better description, could be called the “Been There, Done That Syndrome.” Its warning signs include a bored, jaded attitude which puts the brain into neutral gear (or maybe it’s reverse gear.) It creates a disconnect, a loss of involvement with the real-time world. It’s being dead before we die. It makes a living fossil out of the victim.
Do you suppose this syndrome could spread to our Christian faith? I appreciate Keith Green’s song “My Eyes Are Dry” because it deals with this very thing:
My eyes are dry,
My faith is old,
My heart is hard,
My prayers are cold . . .
The song continues: “What can be done / to an old heart like mine? / Soften it up with oil and wine. / The oil is You, / Your spirit of love. / Please wash me anew / with the wine of your blood.”
Yes, we’re all growing older. Let’s look to the Lord to keep our hearts supple by a continual anointing with the sacred oil of his presence, our lives perpetually washed in the wine of his blood, our faith alive and our prayers vital. That’s ageless living.