It is, I confess, a rather convoluted question, but the principle isn’t so hard to grasp. We often try, as a kind of thought experiment, to ask what we would tell the us of twenty-five years ago if we can go back in time. If such is at all helpful, shouldn’t we be thinking of the other half of the equation now? What are five things me at 83 would say to me at 58 by way of warning?
1. Do not grow weary in doing good (Galatians 6:9). It is all too easy to allow long years of frustration to wear us down. When I sense I’m not making much progress in my own sanctification, weariness is at my doorstep. Our lives are marathons. And as we age we look with longing too often at the sidelines. I don’t want to watch the kingdom. I want to serve it.
2. Do not grow either too hard or too soft. I have witnessed other men grow older and most every time one error or the other is abundantly evident- either they become crotchety old men who can’t get along with anyone (“the church is thee and me and I’m beginning to have doubts about thee”) or they exhibit all the backbone of a jellyfish. Both responses, I suspect, flow out of the same frustration/disappointment mentioned in #1 on my list.
3. Do not lose sight of your need for His grace. We can grow comfortable in our faith, especially after years of walking in it. We put our guard down. But the devil and his minions do not grow weary in doing evil. Our own flesh, and the world around us likewise continue to pursue us until we cross the finish line.
4. Remember the true nature of your calling. Here too we can fall off either side of the horse. I don’t want older me to embrace a retirement that neglects my call to work six days. I may not punch a clock when I’m 83, but neither am I to wait, running out the egg timer. On the other hand I hope when I am that age I will still remember that my real work is as a husband, and a father. Of all the things in this world that I labor and pray over, it is my wife and children that mean the most to me. As the saying goes, no one on their deathbed thinks, “I wish I had spent more time at the office.”
5. The kingdom will thrive without you. God didn’t put me on this earth because there is some great truth or skill set the church needs that only I can provide. The gates of hell did not prevail before me. They will not prevail after me. Cemeteries, as my father used to say, are filled with “indispensable men.” Be at peace when you are called to walk gently into that good night. Do not rage against the dying of the light. And remember that you after you are gone will have so much more wisdom that you before you are gone.
Time travel, I suspect, isn’t in our future, else the future would have come back to tell us. Which means, of course, that I must spend the next 25 years learning what future me would tell me now. Lord, give me ears to hear, and a heart to endure.
i agree wholeheartedly.