So today is my birthday, (no need for well wishes – please). It seems I just had a birthday and yet another has already rolled around. I spoke with a kindly African American man several years ago who didn’t know how old he was but was pretty certain he was close to 100. He told me he didn’t see the point in keeping up with it. He smiled a big beautiful smile and said, “I feel great!”
Hmmm sound wisdom if you asked me. I suppose we are only as old as we feel. The Bible presents growing old as a normal, natural part of life in this world. There is honor involved in the aging process, because growing old is normally accompanied by increased wisdom and experience. “Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life”
Lately I’ve been feeling pretty old, but not in a good way, but I have begun to turn that corner. My 12 week daily chemo treatments will be completed in a little over two weeks and I expect things to improve mightily. They have declared that I am officially healed without so much of a trace of it left in my body now, but have insisted that I finish out the remainder of the scheduled treatment just to make sure. My neck has also sufficiently healed whereby I feel a minimum level of pain and it is getting better each week. Also my wife has survived surgery, 12 weeks of chemo treatments, a bout with pulmonary embolisms, and 6 weeks of radiation for her breast cancer and also appears to be completely healed and on the mend.
So as we emerge from the darkness of 2015 with renewed hope; we are praying that 2016 will be the year of Jubilee with renewed health and vigor. Today I feel like that old African American man, I don’t really care how old I am today. I feel much better mentally and physically than I have all year. And according to the Bible, I can still “bear fruit at an old age”, and am filled with “sap and green” and ready to “declare the Lord is upright”. Make no mistake I intend to do just that.
So as I say my Thanksgiving prayers I have much for which to be thankful. I don’t focus on “why all this stuff happened to me and my family”, I focus on thanking God for deliverance. I suggest that we might all sit “still” this morning and reflect upon what all we have been afforded by God and be thankful for it, instead of focusing on what we don’t have, or lamenting the fact that we are undergoing yet another tribulation.
Thank you Jesus for both the good times and the difficult times in my life. You sustain me through it all and I know that the undeserved love that You feel for me will sustain me throughout eternity where there will be no need for birthdays, watches, clocks, or calendars. There will be no sadness, sickness, tears, death, violence, or destruction; just love, compassion, mercy, kindness, and joy FOREVER.
Have a great holiday weekend and go to Honey Lake Church (or somewhere) Sunday.
Psalm 92:12
The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.
November 27, 2015 – Click here to listen