Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed him in every way. Genesis 24:1

 

Have you observed that with the passing of years, some fight the aging process for all they are worth, and others seem to flow with it? What’s the difference?

Two attitudes often determine whether you mellow with the passing of time or become angry and bitter because life is slipping by. Some fight the aging process‑‑and I do not mean by exercise or involvement‑‑they simply become bitter and withdraw. They are resentful of the fact that younger men are getting the promotions or that their hands are wrinkled, and if it were not for hair color, a great many more than the beautician would know that age is making headway. Their attitude of bitterness and anger often causes them to hibernate and withdraw; they become so difficult to handle that even relatives and children tend to ignore them, thus creating only greater loneliness and resentment.

Others mellow like a soft glove with wear, or a favorite pair of slippers that grow only more comfortable year by year. Instead of resenting the aging process, they turn it into an opportunity to do something for themselves, for others, and even for the Lord’s work in general.

Frankly, it would be almost impossible for us to carry on at Guidelines were it not for some of our staff members who chose to use their lives and resources for the Lord’s work rather than take retirement and wear out a rocking chair. When they were confronted with decision, they chose to do some of the things that they had always wanted to do, but could not do with a family and responsibilities.

Ruth Warren did that. When her husband, Jim, passed away and the last of her children got married, she went back to school and took a degree in counseling and worked with us at Guidelines, answering many letters each month from friends who write to Guidelines.

Fred Bailey did the same thing. Taking early retirement, he volunteered to come and help us. He ended up doing the one thing that he said he would never do after leaving the aerospace industry‑‑run a machine. For six years he duplicated the tapes which were sent to radio stations all over the world

On his 75th birthday, General Douglas MacArthur quoted Samuel Ullman: “Youth is not a time of life. It is a state of mind. It is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions…. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self‑distrust, fear and despair‑‑these bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.

You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self‑confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from man and from the Infinite, so long are you young. When the wires are all down, and the central place of your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, are you grown old indeed, and may God have mercy on your soul. Live every day of your life as though you expect to live forever.

Yes, age is a matter of the mind; if you do not mind, it does not matter.

Resource reading: Psalm 90.