I’m getting old.
You may not be old………..yet. But, you are certainly older than you were last week. This is one of the greatest truths…..one of the most pressing realities of our lives. Yet, oddly, we give it little thought. This is probably because of where it leads……..physical deterioration and death.
We live in a society that worships youth. When the TV wants to sell you something, they show you somebody 45 or younger enjoying it. Have you ever seen a soap commercial featuring an 85 year old in a wheelchair? Have you ever seen, on TV, an 85 year old in a wheelchair enjoying anything? 85 doesn’t look like any fun at all………if the TV is telling us the truth. And yet, old is where we are headed…….all of us. The only way to avoid 85………is to die young……….swell. A famous musician summed it up pretty well when he said, “Nobody gets out alive”.
Our culture’s solution to this “unhappy ending” is surprising in its simplicity………we ignore it. “Eat, drink, and be merry…….” But, generally speaking, ignoring the truth is not a good plan. I once went to a surgeon to get something fixed. In the course of our conversation, he said,
“You’re going to get old, and you’re going to die, and it’s going to be ugly”.
That was uplifting……….and yet every word was true.
So……..how do I get up and face the day………face my future……..face 85 in a wheelchair? Well, I start out slowly. I let the stiffness and the dizziness settle down. Then I sit up, put my feet on the floor and get going.
I look a little further ahead than my TV does. I look out of my back window at this amazing beautiful world. I consider how it came to be.The most popular explanation of the world today is Darwinism. Boiled down, Darwin tells us that everything we see is just an accident……actually trillions upon trillions of consecutive, additive, positively adaptive accidents. The trouble with Darwin is that I’ve seen enough accidents to know that after an accident, things get worse not better….things become more random, not more organized. Darwinism is a little like believing that the way to improve your old car is to plow it into a tree. (OK, that was cheap……the car isn’t alive so Darwin doesn’t apply).
So, I choose a less popular world view…….intelligent design. This tells me that behind it all is a creative intelligence. I think that the best candidate for this intelligence is God/Jesus/Spirit……a benevolent creator who cares for me personally. This is good and bad (from a secular perspective). The creator promises life after old age……after 85 in a wheelchair……after death. But, the creator also has expectations of us…….expectations of me………before 85. This world view is humbling because we are moved down the chain of command from the greatest intellect in the cosmos to a fairly small cog in a very large machine. We are not in charge. And we, as humans, do not like the whole humble thing. We like believing that we are in charge. Even though…….by any measure……..we have made a mess of things.
So, how do I face my day……today…….at 65? I take the long view. I look ahead to paradise where I get to spend time with the guy who made me………to spend time with friends and family. I accept that while 85 in a wheelchair is going to be a temporary setback…….there is something much better ahead. I am not clear on all of the details, but I suspect that it will involve friends, a satisfying job, and a body that works the way God intended it to. Until then, I will focus on living up to my creator’s expectations of me………today.
His expectations? Pretty simple.
Love
Love God and love my fellow man. That should keep me busy……..for the next 20 years or so.
“Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Jesus, NIV