It takes quite a bit longer for me to go up and down the stairs these days, I at times feel the cold much more than I used to, and although I never felt inclined to walk at a fast pace in my youth, at best today one could call my gait a saunter. Strength will inevitably fail me one day, and I will need to call for assistance where once vigor and stamina reigned.
I will not, much to my dismay, be as Moses was, “And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.” (Deut. 34:7) It is my mind, at least in this present time, that the Lord God is working on, it has never been cleaner, never been able to calculate, to use deductive reasoning skills as it does now, and to God goes the glory. Along with this age I now reside in has come the answer to many prayers, very specific in nature and God honoring in their intent, “to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” (Col. 1:9) To have a heart that can discern between good and evil, (1 Kings 3:9) to be the type of husband that His Word says I am to be. (Eph. 5:25)
These answered prayers are continuously being answered, and at times I can see quite clearly how He has used me in the past in many different ways to come to this point. David asked the Lord not to forsake him in his old age, (Psalm 71:9) I find no offense or fault in doing the same myself, and if you are reaching the point in your life where the sunset on the horizon is much more in focus than the sunrise, I see no reason why you should not ask the same from Him. If your desire is to glorify Him in every area of your life, then He will answer you, but not if you are desiring to seek these favors for your own purposes.
Hezekiah was an excellent example of this, (2 Kings 20:6) fifteen extra years added to the clock of his life, yet if you read the entire account, you will see how that age he reached was nothing but detrimental to the land of Israel. His response was basically “Well, at least it will not happen in my lifetime.” (Isaiah 39:8)
Long life, length of days are the promise to those who seek for wisdom, (Prov. 3:16) who sit at her gate each and every day, (Prov. 1:21-22) and with this promise comes a blessing that few my age can comprehend, a mind that functions for the glory of God, a heart that understand what this means “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” (Psalm 42:1) The knowledge of the truth that “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” (Matt. 5:6)
The closer a man gets to the end of the trail, the more he desires the rest at the end of that trail, but the wise man, the Spirit-led man, will not rest on the trail, there is work to be done, and the trail is never a safe place to rest. There is a confidence that at times is seriously lacking in me though, the abating at times of my trust in Him, and each time it arrives it angers me more than the last. The Lord has never failed me, I have not only witnessed firsthand but have been the recipient of times that have no logical answer but the word “miracle” to explain them, yet there are still those moments.
I have several years on my most beautiful wife, and statistically speaking, I will go on to glory before her, and this too is a burden on my soul, I have and need no one to trust her welfare to but the Lord, and so I find fault in myself when doubts in this area begin to appear also. He has never left me or forsaken me, yet I have turned my back on Him and run in the opposite direction many times, and the man I have always been would not always turn back to Him, but had to be drug back, and for this I am eternally thankful.
As you travel through this life, expect these days, expect the pain, and do not go running to the physician every time they show up, for they are a blessing, it is the last times you will ever experience them. But if you plot your course toward the face of God, if you learn to submit to Him fully, hopefully much sooner than I did, oh my friends, the blessings become untellable. Set your face like a flint, (Isaiah 50:7) begin to understand today what it means to pant after Him, trust and obey, you will not be disappointed. The farther we travel on this road of life, the closer we are to getting home.
