On getting old

I recently had a milestone birthday.

For which my dear family got me this iPad Pro!

40.  I turned 40.

It amused me how many people’s birthday wishes were actually condolences.  

“It’s just a number!”

“I hope you handle it better than I did.”

“Oh well, at least you got a card.”

Last year when I threw myself a birthday party, friends tiptoed around the question: “You’re so young. This isn’t a big birthday, is it?”  When what they really meant was, “How old are you?”

I was recently reminded that turning a milestone year like 30 or 40 is really hard for people whose life doesn’t look anything like how they hoped it would by that time.  Maybe they have yet to get married; or they’re divorced and unwillingly single again, for example.

But I can’t help but feel that much of the delicacy surrounding age in our culture is silliness.  Facts are facts.  I was born in 1980; that was 40 years ago; therefore, I’m 40.  Ten years from now, if I am still on this planet, I will be 50.  Someday I might be 80.  I’m pretty sure my birth year is a matter of public record, so it’s not like a state secret.

Here’s one guy who isn’t worried about his age.

We age.  This is a basic fact of life on earth.  Maybe the gospel gives me the courage to face it.  I’ve known for years that the Bible promises my body will decay.  To dust I will return and all that, and it happens bit by bit over the years—starting around age 23 or so. 

“Therefore glorify God in your body.”

~1 Corinthians 6:20

Admittedly, I wish I had fewer wrinkles and the metabolism of a teenager.  But I wouldn’t trade those things for what wisdom this many years has given me—as well as the sort of comfortability with oneself that age brings (what our children call dorkiness, as we increasingly shrug off what the world thinks).  

I heard John Piper once say, regarding the desire to look younger, despite the acquisition of wisdom as we age, “Why would I want to look ten years dumber?”

I’ve walked with Jesus for going on 35 years now and haven’t yet found Him unfaithful.  And most of all, every day—every year—brings me closer to the moment when I see Him face to face, whether by my bodily death or His bodily return.  Why would I want to reverse time?  That’s the very day I long for.

Yes, it’s disappointing, at best, to watch my body slide into decay.  My knee is sore; my skin sags and has weird new spots; accidents hurt more; my joints don’t bend like they used to.  At worst, it’s tempting to panic and scrabble to try and hold on to physical youth.  So we cling to our kids and are shocked when they grow up; we avoid admitting simple arithmetic; we get offended when people call us that dirtiest of words: old.

But what if we rejoice at each new age spot (smart spots, my friend and I decided to call them, since they demonstrate we are aged and therefore wise) because it promises that we are one step closer to the grave, which, while our final enemy in one sense, is also the believer’s door to paradise and the relief of our longing heart.  

What if the weakening of my body doesn’t frustrate me, but instead reminds me that “though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” and I am moving toward the “eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison”?*  God is doing something inside me that’s far more valuable than taut skin and the foolishness of youth.  He is preparing me for glory.  And the weaker and more broken my body gets as the years go on, the more He will invite me to trust Him and yearn for that great day, and that kind of yearning will only welcome the years that speed by.

We’ve taken to giving “motivational speeches” before school each day, on a rotating basis.  This is what Ada created for her inspiration.

It’s alright

It’s okay

I won’t worry ‘bout tomorrow

For it brings me one more day

Closer than I was to You

~Third Day, “It’s Alright”

Not sure if it’s aging-related, but Buck is in the worst shedding phase he’s ever had.  Fur tumbleweeds waft through the school room throughout the day, and when you spend five minutes petting him, this is the result.

*2 Corinthians 4:16-17