Here is our church, we just finished a four-week study on “More Than A Number: Aging with More Intentionality.” We learned that it is important to distinguish here between aging and old age. While old age is the position, aging is the process—the process of hard-fought, small investments made over time that determine our final position. May the Lord help us to own our personal responsibility in the process of aging!

As I reflect upon what the Lord recently did in our hearts, I wanted to share some of the powerful, pithy thoughts that truly impacted me of the past month or so:

“They were angry with the table stewards for not giving them super-service. They seemed to be afraid they might starve between courses. Their physical appetites seemed the one thing that mattered to them. I never saw them reading a book or paper. They sat between meals and stared out, apparently waiting for the next meal. One night I saw them sitting thus and staring blankly, when a bright idea flashed across the dull brain of the man. He went to the mantelpiece and picked up the vases, and looked into them, and then returned to his wife with the news: “They’re empty!” I came very near laughing. He was right; “They’re empty!” But it wasn’t merely the vases! The souls and brains of both of them were empty. They had much in their purses, but nothing in their persons; and that was their punishment. They had security with boredom—no adventure. They had expanding girths and narrowing horizons.”

E. Stanley Jones

“Spiritual gifts don’t wither with age, they atrophy with disuse.”

J.I. Packer

“No one grows old by living-only by losing interest in living.”

John Goetsch

“There are a lot of studies that show about 25 percent of how healthy you remain and how long you live is due to genetics, which you can’t control. The rest is due to environment, much of which you can control.”

Steven N. Austad

“Even as physical strength fails, spiritual strength surges. Time, the enemy of the body, is the friend of the soul.” 

Tim Challies

“As we age we get foolish. We foolishly think we are last great generation!” 

John C. Maxwell

“A rut is just a grave with both ends knocked out of it.”

Vance Havner

“The best thing we can do for those we love and lead is prepare them for our absence. The only way to do that is to teach them to recognize God‘s presence and to seek God‘s guidance.”

Scott Pauley

“We don’t inherit the land from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”

Native American Proverb

“Knowing that we have an infinitely satisfying and everlasting inheritance in God just over the horizon of life makes us zealous in our few remaining years here to spend ourselves in the sacrifices of love, not the accumulation of comforts.” 

John Piper

“‘Teachable’ means that they (those that age well) maintain a humble posture and are open to receiving midcourse corrections. Those who finish well never stop doing this. They are lifelong learners. They learn from reading, from watching and listening to others, and from life itself. This keeps them from plateauing.”

Donald and George Sweeting

“We need to discipline our bodies to ensure we behave with self-control rather than lust. We need to discipline our minds to ensure we do not welcome evil thoughts. We need to discipline our imaginations to ensure we delight in what is good and refuse to fantasize about what God forbids. We need to discipline our mouths to ensure we only speak words that build up. We need to discipline our time to ensure we put every moment to effective use.”

TIm Challies

“Living becomes an awesome business when you realize that you spend every moment of your life in the sight and company of an omniscient, omnipresent Creator.”

J.I. Packer

If you would like to catch the full study, go here.

We closed our series with the following caption and stirring video posted by the dear wife of Ron Hamilton, also widely known as Patch the Pirate, who is navigating the challenges of early onset dementia (may the Lord help you and me to age in a similarly intentional and inspirational manner no matter what life throws at us):

“The one song Ron can still play is ‘Trust in the Lord’ that he wrote back in the 1980’s. I posted him playing it quite a few months ago. He hadn’t played it since until a few days ago. The Scripture text is a major theme of our life. ‘The just shall live by faith.’” (Shelly Hamilton)

Photo by Vlad Sargu on Unsplash