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My beautiful, huge tree took decades to grow strong and tall. Storms, drought, many seasons it was in the making.
“Though youths grow weary and stumble, tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary” (Isaiah 40:30-31)
Isaiah tells us that when we are young, we stumble, grow weary. When I was young, I was guessing at how to live life well. With each child, each year of marriage, and each year of work, I grew stronger little by little in faith, relationships, work, wisdom, and life. I learned that struggling does not have to define my whole life. Evidently, it was common even in ancient history for younger in life to strain towards flourishing, to seek to come up with answers, to live into ideals while stumbling.
There are many gifts of aging, gaining experience. It comes from waiting, learning, storing up experience and understanding. Yet, our culture is not inclined to appreciate the value of age or the richness of wisdom in contrast to choosing over-confidence and cleverness of youth. Those who have grown older through many years of ideals and trials, yet held fast to God, even in the darkness, have bought for their toil, perspective, wisdom and humility, gentleness.
The older one becomes, the more one understands how little power or control we have over life, circumstances and relationships. The understanding of fighting and scrambling for the things of this world, seeking to make life tame its raging storms, shaking our fist at heaven, becomes futile to one who is focusing more on eternity.
The gift of aging wisely is humility, gentleness and patience. Humility, because of a realization of how finite we are, how much we need and depend on God's grace for our very life; gentleness, because we are ourselves in such need of gentle compassion and love from others in our own frailty; patience, because we have learned that nothing happens on our time schedule, but that in the end, God is good.
These gifts are only for those who determine to chase after Him, who hold fast, even in darkness, who choose to believe when they cannot see.