Toongabbie Anglican Church Blog

Weekly Blurb

Even when I am old and gray

Sunday 26 February, 2006 · Posted by Philip Bassett

In Psalm 71 verses 17 and 18 we read:

“Since my youth, O God, you have taught me,
and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.
Even when I am old and gray,
do not forsake me, O God,
till I declare your power to the next generation,
your might to all who are to come.”

With my parents in their nineties and in visiting and talking to other older people I find two main groups: those who love the Lord and those who don’t. Those who love the Lord, even though their bodies and sometimes their minds, are failing, still speak positively about today and tomorrow. They see beyond just the further deterioration of their faculties and look forward positively to when they will be with the Lord. This doesn’t entirely remove their anxieties, there is always the element of the unknown but to quote one lady, “the worst that can happen is I’ll die, and then I’ll be with the Lord.”

Those who don’t have a living relationship with Jesus to fall back on often look to the past rather than the future because the future is too scary to dwell upon. Often there is an element of fatalism – these things are going to happen and I can’t change them so I’ll just live for the moment. And sometimes there is a desperate fear of what lies ahead, sometimes of the unknown and sometimes of the judgment to come.

It is interesting that the Bible doesn’t say a lot about the elderly. It tells us we are to respect them, care for them and heed them but in general it treats the elderly as it does any other mature person. If we are concerned about their physical welfare, provide for them. If we are concerned about their spiritual welfare, share the gospel with them.

Those verses from Psalm 71 are a wonderful testimony of a man who loves the Lord. The whole Psalm has been called “The Prayer of the Aged Believer”, a man who, in holy confidence of faith, strengthened by a long and remarkable experience of his God, pleads against his enemies and asks further blessings for himself. In anticipation of God's gracious reply he promises to keep on praising the Lord and importantly will pass on the account of his relationship with God to the next generation.

Perhaps a question we can ask ourselves as we get older is, “What am I passing on to the next generation?” Is it just the remaining physical “stuff” that clutters up our lives or is it a spiritual heritage of love for the Lord?

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