The Aging Process & God

And having our mobility has always been of top importance to us, hasn't it? Because as long as we have our mind and our mobility, it represents independence. It represents independence versus dependence. And as long as we have that, we can get around and we can basically take care of ourselves. And that's very important to us. It's kind of like being able to drive. As long as a person can drive, well, they can go here, they can go there. They're not tied down. You know, the ability to drive represents a certain opportunity and freedom of movement of independence. Now, remember when you were young or younger, if you're old or older? And how you look forward to getting your driver's license or your permit as the first step to getting your driver's license. And we've got some young ones in here who don't have their permits and don't have their driver's license, but they're looking forward to it. And, of course, you look forward to having that and, obviously, as a follow-up at the right time later on, having your own, as they say, set of wheels. That's tied to a feeling of freedom and independence, of opportunity. And that's not all bad. It's part of a normal, natural, proper process, isn't it? And don't we, those of us who are older, don't we dread the day when that particular freedom is lost? Being able to drive represents so much physically and psychologically. I remember an elderly gentleman who kept his driver's license into his 90s, into his mid-90s. I was his pastor for several years. He and his wife were, especially her, in poor health. They couldn't leave the little town they lived in. They could no longer drive outside the town.

She didn't drive at all. He could still drive, but he didn't get out of town. But he could drive. And he had his driver's license, and he could go to the store, and go to the pharmacy, the drugstore, and Walmart, and all of that. So they were able to get about doctor's appointments independently in town.

But because he was at the age he was, and in the state in which he lived, he did have to take a driving test every year. So on his last driving test, and he was in his mid-90s at this time, his last driving test, a lady trooper, state trooper, was administering the driving test to him.

And this is at the edge of town. Two-lane road. Another road tees into it. And she said, take a right onto the road that teed into it. He told me later that he just doesn't know what happened, but he blanked out.

He turned the wheel to the right, turned on to the road that teed into the one he was on, but he went all the way across that road, off the other side of the road, into a ravine that was about 50 feet below the road, but it sloped down real gradual, so nobody got hurt.

But you imagine, as he took a right, and instead of staying in the right lane, he just crossed the road completely, went off the other side, down this slope, into the ravine about 50 feet below the road. Of course, he messed up the car pretty fair, obviously. It didn't hurt him other than a few bruises. I think he scared the daylights out of the lady trooper. But other than some bruises and a pretty good scare, neither he nor the trooper was really hurt. But again, obviously the car was damaged.

And just as obviously he didn't pass the test.

One of the members called me and told me about it, and so just as soon as I could, I drove up to see him because I wanted to see how he was doing, and I knew that he would be down and discouraged and all of that, and wanted to go see him. So I went to see the couple. The lady's quite a talker. He wasn't able to get a word in edgewise too often. But I'm sitting there close to her, and she's talking, and he's over to my left, and out of the corner of my eye, I see him keep glancing over at me sheepishly.

And I knew he wanted to ask me something, and I could kind of guess what it was. So when he got a little break, found a little break in the conversation that his wife was having with me, he said, Mr. Beame, do you think I should try again? Now I knew him, I knew her, and I knew the couple very well. I spent many hours with them over a number of years. And I very gently and calmly said, Mr. So-and-so, I think it's time to hang it up. And it was time. And he quietly and graciously accepted the reality and made the necessary adjustments that had to be made.

The aging process is not easy to deal with. It brings challenges, it brings changes, challenges and changes that are unavoidable. You know, parts diminish, and parts wear out.

When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, and where I grew up, vehicles at that time with 100,000 miles on them were pretty well worn out. You could hardly give them away. You sure couldn't sell them and get really anything appreciable.

Of course, in those years, when and where I grew up in the hill country of Northeast Mississippi, all roads, except for just a very few state roads, were gravel. So it was rough on vehicles. And, of course, technology wasn't what it is now.

Oils weren't as good. Vehicles just simply, with the terrain and other factors, they just didn't last but about 100,000 miles, and they were pretty well used up, worn out. Of course, today, you can get 200,000 or 300,000 miles out of a vehicle if you keep it serviced and taken care of, because oils are better.

The roads are obviously a whole lot better.

But even today, where vehicles can and do last a lot longer, you still have parts to deal with, don't you? For years, when I was on a fleet program, I was 20-something years on a fleet program, the fleet program that I was on with the church, we tried to trade the vehicles out, generally, before they got to 70,000 and beyond. Now, that was due both to resale value. There's a point where the lines cross on the graph, and you want to sell or trade while you can maximize the resale value.

And also, before you have parts to start going out, the ministry lived on the road.

In my lifetime, I've driven about 2 million miles, and that's a lot of times to be in a vehicle. We lived on the road so much of it was carried out on the road. We obviously wanted to avoid breakdowns.

It's one thing if you're going on a visit, and this just happened to me before, and you have a car problem, and you have to call and say, look, I can't make it, I've got a car problem. I'll have to catch you another time. It's another thing if you're on the way to conduct a funeral, and you don't call and say, well, you're going to have to postpone it or get somebody else to do it, I'm stranded.

That's never happened to me, and I do my best to see that doesn't happen. Or you're going to do somebody's wedding. Or even on the Sabbath, if I were to have a problem between here and Gaston, I'd just simply call and say, you're going to have to play a DVD. I can't make it. But we were a ministry that was especially during the booming years of the 60s and the 70s and even into the 80s, we not only covered a wide territory, but we had visit requests with brand new people coming in faster than we could meet them, keep up with them. So there was a reason we did it the way we did it. Since I have been off the fleet program since 1995, I generally run my vehicles up to high mileage.

Now, the Corolla that I'm running out there is only got 60,000 on it, so it's got low miles. But most of my vehicles, I've run them up to 200 something thousand before I would get rid of them. But then that meant, too, that there have been times where at midnight I've got a breakdown and I'm remembering where was the last gas station I passed, and walking back to it in the dark to a payphone, and you can't find payphones anymore. Of course, back in some of those years, I didn't have a cell phone at that time. And so I know what it's like to break down and be stranded out there in the middle of nowhere.

But anyway, with many vehicles, once you get past 50,000, especially into 60 to 70 something, you automatically have to start replacing some parts.

It may be an alternator, it may just be a battery, it might be a starter, depending on the vehicle and the reliability of it. But let's correlate that to human beings. Generally, by our 50s, we experience diminishing of one or more of our body parts. Usually by the 50s, you'll notice that certain body parts don't function quite as well as they did.

And with enough more years, whether that's in our 60s or 70s or 80s or beyond, at some point we wind up with outright failure with one or more body parts.

One of the blessings of this age in which we are privileged to live is that with modern medical technology, we can not only keep people alive longer, but also we can have replacement parts put in, which in some cases is what keeps people alive longer, like heart valves, for instance. We have replacement parts. You can have artificial joints put in, knees, hips, shoulders, etc.

Which, again, is due to the technology we have now. Now, that said, it still holds true that no replacement part is as good as a healthy original. But sometimes the original gets in such bad shape and can't do its functioning that the replacement is better than what the original has become.

But when the original has failed to a certain point, the replacement can by time and it keeps us going longer. And again, that's something that we can be thankful for. But when it's all said and done, the fact remains that time and age will take its toll. And the aging process is eventually terminal.

As I have often said, and I've said this many a time at funerals, because it is an appropriate time to say it at funerals at the right time and place, if God gives me enough time, it'll kill me. And you think about that. If God gives me enough time, it'll kill me. That is a totally true statement of reality. It's also a totally true statement that there will be a decline that leads up to that point. There will be a decline that leads up to it. A simple reality is this, and listen carefully. God has never healed anyone of old age. Show me one example in the Bible where God has healed somebody of old age. It's not there. No one has ever been healed of old age. Now, many a time, He has extended life. Many a time, He's added extra strength. He's put a little bit more time or functioning in that particular organ or those organs. He has extended life. I've seen that over and over. I could name you certain ones in this three-church area that I pastor, where I know the only reason so-and-so is alive is because God has extended their time, giving them a little extra time. But He's never healed anyone of old age. He's given some additional time, but He's never removed the process. In fact, He's actually stopped the process in some cases. Look at Deuteronomy 34, verses 5-7. Deuteronomy 34, verses 5-7. You might be ahead of me here. Verse 5, last chapter of Deuteronomy. So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died. And he didn't die of old age because the process was stopped.

God stopped it by taking His life. So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, on the other side of the Jordan, according to the word of the Lord. And he, the Lord, God, buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-Pior. But no man knows of his sepulcher or grave until this day.

Wherever God buried Moses, nobody knows.

And notice, verse 7, Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was not dim. His vision was still great. Nor his natural force, natural energies, abated or diminished. He was going strong. Maybe he would have lived to be 140, 150. We don't know. We just know that at this point in time, because God had told him, due to what he had done at the Rock, that he would not be allowed the physical blessing. He would be in the resurrection. But he would not be allowed the physical blessing of leading Israel into the land of promise. Joshua would do that.

God stopped the process.

Of course, death always stops the process, one way or the other. Death is the concluding point. You know, we age. Parts wear out. That's an inescapable reality. I'd like to read Hebrews 9, 27.

Hebrews 9 and verse 27. Just a basic statement of reality, of mortality, of what time combined with our mortality does. We're just not made to last indefinitely. Hebrews 9, verse 27. And as it is appointed unto men, wants to die. But after this, the judgment. And it's just part of the natural process that, as I said, if God gives me enough time, it'll kill me. If Jesus Christ, if the Father holds off the return of Jesus Christ long enough, when Christ returns, I'll come out of the grave. I'll be resurrected from the grave because I'll be in the grave. And if he comes soon enough, I won't be.

We don't move very deep into our physical lifetime before we begin to experience and see proof of this reality, both with ourselves and especially with our older family members and friends around us. We come into this life very, you know, just a babe and a toddler and a child. We have our great-grandparents. In some cases, we may have our great-great-grandparents around, and our great-grandparents and our great-uncles and our grandparents and our aunts and our uncles.

And, of course, very early on, we start seeing the loss of those great-grates and greats. I think I was about somewhere around age 10 or so when my great-grandfather Duncan Veen died. I remember sitting in the little church house at his funeral. But you lose those that are aged, and you begin to experience that reality, but it's more at a distance. And, of course, the closer you are to the layers of the generations, the more the reality of it hits you. But I saw, you know, you see the diminishment and you see the losses and you see the aging process. My maternal grandfather, my mother's father, the one who began listening to Mr. Armstrong in the early 1940s, and through whom God called my mother, the oldest sibling, and all of her siblings, all five of them. And through my mom, my father, being the only one from his family, he was called. But my grandfather lived to be 94 years of age. He, in his prime, was around 5'9", 5'9 1⁄2", about 165 to 170. But I grew up seeing a man that was one of the strongest men ever knew, not just in brute strength, but in his energy levels to work. He would go weeks and weeks on 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night. And he did everything from farming to logging to blacksmithing, carpentry, the works. At age 60, he went at the back of a beetle, a Volkswagen Beetle. That's when they put the engines in the rear, put his work-hardened hands on the bumper, and by himself just lifted it completely off the ground. At age 60, he was extremely strong. And I saw quite a few examples of that when I was growing up. And as a young man, I was very impressed with that. As most young men would be, of course. But a very strong individual, very strong in energy, very strong in pure muscle power.

And by the time death came, at 94, by the time it came, for all practical purposes, his mind was gone, and he was in diapers, literally, again. We start out in diapers, and if we live long enough, we'll wind up in them again. Personally, I don't want to live that long. I don't want to live to the point that my mind would be gone, and I'd be in diapers again. I may not have a choice in it. Who knows? I'm just saying, the aging process, it's very real. I've seen it. We're all familiar with it. But you know what? There is a certain value in understanding the aging process. What others are going through when we're younger, what we see others going through, and what each of us is going to go through, or will eventually, in due time, go through. I wish that as a young man, I had known what I know now. I wish that I, as a young man, had been able to look at those older in my family, among my friends, and the churches, and had a greater appreciation for what the older ones were dealing with with the aging process. I wish I had known then what I know now, because I would have been a better person for it. I would have been a more caring, and loving, and considerate individual for it. I would have been a better pastor for it. Sometimes, we have to begin to go through some things ourselves, in order to have truly the inside view that makes us better as a person, even as we're losing physically. But there is a certain value in understanding the aging process, and again, what others are going through, and what we each, every one of us, eventually, through time, go through.

But for the man or woman of God, there's a special blessing, in properly processing the reality of the aging process. So let's look at that today. Let's talk about the aging process and guide. If you want to title the aging process and guide.

That process in and of itself teaches us a number of things.

That process in and of itself contains a number of valuable lessons, and such is ingrained in the process, and God is the one who designed the process. And He's designed it so that there are lessons in it that we can benefit from. The aging process forces a recognition of certain realities. Here are some of those realities.

I'm going to go to James 4.14.

You can't stop it from being temporary. It is temporary. We see it in front of us, we see it close to us, and we begin to see it with ourselves.

James 4.14, the half-sibling of Jesus Christ, the Apostle James, the oldest of the children that Joseph and Mary had together after Christ was born. Because Joseph was not His Father, Joseph was His stepfather. God was the Father of Christ. James 4.14, He said, Whereas, you know not what shall be on the morrow for, what is your life?

And you think about it, what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. It goes so quickly.

You talk to somebody who is 90 or 100, and you think, Wow, that's a long time to live. Yeah, it is, in human terms, a whole century. And the thing that I ran into years ago, talking with someone who was 100, and someone who was 95 and 90, they said, We just didn't know how fast we would get here. And you think about that, how fast we would get here. I am young, I am only 68, but I am amazed at how fast I got to this point. And life does, time speeds up. James says, It is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. And if you look right next door to James, 1 Peter, 1 Peter 1, verse 24, He says, For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of grass. The grass withers. You go out, you have this grass that is kind of high, and you know, I have to mow it. And you go and mow it. It doesn't take very long for you to look at the grass, the cuttings, and see how quickly they wither. The grass withers, and the flower thereof falls away. Psalm 90, verse 10, is a lifeline type Scripture. Psalm 90 probably rings the bell for us. The days of our years are three, four years, and ten, seventy. And if by reason of strength, they be four score, eighty years. And that's basically, if you do a little research on it, you'll find that that's basically, in America, that's basically the lifeline of people. Seventy to eighty years. That's where the majority of people fall in their longevity. And again, you can research it very easily with the Internet and see that. It says, yet is there strength, labor and sorrow. There's so much labor and sorrow along the way, for it is soon cut off, and in the King James it says, we fly away, but it should be fainte away. We faint away. We die. And of course, there's a fading before we get to that point. You can't make it last indefinitely. A scripture, Psalm 22 and verse 29, there's a statement in that verse in Psalm 22 and verse 29, there is a statement that says, none can keep alive his own soul. We can slow the process down. We can't stop it.

I want to read 1 Kings 2, 1 Kings 2, Chapter 2, verse 2. 1 Kings 2, Chapter 2. David is dying, and he calls Solomon to him. In 1 Kings 2, verse 1, Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die. When David died, he was only 70. But at 70, David was old and worn out, and so old and worn out that he couldn't even generate body heat. He was chilled. He was cold. He couldn't get warm. His circulation was so bad. He was a worn out old man at that point. Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die, and he charged Solomon his son saying. You'd imagine him looking up from his bed at Solomon and saying, Son, I go the way of all the earth. You be strong therefore and show yourself a man. I go the way of all the earth. It's appointed unto all men once to die. That's just the process of mortality. I go the way of all the earth. What is the way of all the earth? Adam? You're made of dust. You're going back to dust. That's Genesis 3.19. Adam? From the dust you came to the dust you go back. And whether it be 70 or it be, like with Adam, 930 years, one event happens to all, and Solomon wrote about that in Ecclesiastes 3.20.

Solomon wrote, I'll go to one place. All are of the dust, and I'll turn to dust again. Again, it's just one of the realities that the aging process really bears upon us. 2. Another reality that's impressed upon us. 2. You lose this life by degrees. You lose this life by degrees. Now, barring an accident where it's immediate, just in the regular, normal, natural aging process, you lose this life by degrees. You don't lose it all at once. You lose it by degrees.

Notice 2 Corinthians 4.16. 2 Corinthians 4, as far as the physical aspect here, 2 Corinthians 4, verse 16. Paul says, For which cause we faint not? But though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. But notice the physical. Though our outward man, our physical being, our mortality, perish, or is perishing.

And even doing that which slows the process down. And yes, there are things we can do that do slow the process down. You can only slow it down. You can't stop it. It's interesting. Tomorrow evening, the Super Bowl in Atlanta, the Rams and the Patriots, some of the biggest, meanest, toughest, quickest, strongest, most athletic, loaded with agility, coordination, and talent men on the planet, will vie to be the champions. And whoever wins, guess what will occur later on this year? Training camp. And guess what those men, many of them will be doing? They'll be fighting to keep their job. Because with every year, the veterans get a year older.

And these are men in great condition. I talk about, oh, this is the youngest team, let's say, in the NFL. They've got nobody on their team that's 30. Or this is one of the youngest teams in the NFL. They've only got two players that are over 30. Because the strength of youth, already, by the time they get up to their upper 20s and start into their 30s, a lot of these positions, they're having to fight to keep them because every year out of college comes, you know, you've got the draft and these other players.

And so, they're a little bit quicker, a little bit stronger, a little bit younger, a little bit faster, because already the veterans that have been there a few years, they're slowing down just enough, no matter how much they weight train and run and all they do. The point is, even they prove, even they prove the aging process that's going on, even though they're in tip-top shape, but so many of them have to fight each year in training camp to keep their job.

And you know the average age, longevity of a NFL player, a football player? It's around 3.8. That's the average length. For those who maybe last 20 years, in some cases, and those usually are more positions where there's not as much bang-up happening to them, they're those who don't even make it out of training camp. But about 3.8 or so. That's what it was a couple of years ago. Number three.

It causes you to focus on that which is lasting. It causes you to focus on that which is lasting. It causes you not to neglect the opportunity to go on beyond this life, because if this life itself is all that you're latching onto, it does play out eventually. See, it produces a perspective of life that is upon life that extends into eternity. That is, to apply yourself to that eternity. That is, to do in a way that uses this temporary life as what it was designed to be by God, a training ground, a training base.

This planet which will someday become the headquarters, and that's in Scripture, of the universe, and God the Father Himself will dwell here someday, is also the training base for those who will be the sons and daughters in His family. It's a spiritual boot camp. A spiritual boot camp. If you're still here in Corinthians, let's read 2 Corinthians 5, verses 1-4. Paul says, For we know that if our earthly house of this dwelling, this tabernacle, our mortality, we're physical, we're composed of dust, we're dissolved. He's speaking to the ecclesia. He's speaking to the church members. If it were dissolved, if it comes apart, if it fails, if we die, because everyone that he was writing to was facing that eventually, we're dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens, not been given it yet, but held in reserve, the glorification of having a glorified, eternal, spiritually composed body beyond all breakage, disease, sickness, tiredness, weariness, any of that.

He says, For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven, composition, new body, glorified body. If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. We do in a way that will be clothed with that in due time, will not be left out of that. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not for that we would be unclothed. We don't want to die. We don't want to die. It's not like, oh, I just can't wait to die so that I can then wait in the grave to get nice.

Not that we would be unclothed of it, but clothed upon. We know there's a time coming when this life finishes and we wait for that resurrection when we're going to be clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life, will have eternal life at that time. See, we so do in a way that when this life runs out, fades out, plays out. And believe me, I know, and it's just simply a statement of fact, that I have gone to, been at, and shall be at more funerals than any of us in here other than me.

Just because it goes with what I have to do. And it's on my mind an awful lot. This life will run out. It fades out. And not that you would have to go to the same number. We realize these things, don't we?

It plays out. But so that when it does play out, we do have an extension, the most important extension of all of life that is into eternity to look forward to. So we attend to and we feed that which will last. Notice, go back to chapter 4. We feed that which will last. And this is part of what Paul is driving at too, when he says again in verse 16, For which cause we faint not?

We don't quit. But though our outward man perish, though, the mortality is fading and it's going to eventually dissolve. Yes, yet the inward man, inward person, inward being, the new spiritual creation is renewed day by day. I would reference to that chapter 5 verse 17 in this book, chapter 5 verse 17, A New Creation in Christ. So if we take to heart what Paul is saying, what does it cause us to do, that which the aging process does bear upon us, It causes us to prioritize and to put and to keep first things first.

That is so crucial that we prioritize and put and keep first things first. Because as the physical diminishes, and it will, it does, you grow in the spiritual. As you lose on the physical level, you gain on the spiritual. As you lose physical ground, you gain more spiritual ground and foundation. You can't stop the physical decline. You can only slow it down, and at most, you can do everything you can to maximize and optimize.

And it's just like with myself wanting to be able to last as a pastor until I'm 80. If this age stands that long, there are things that I can do that will help to ensure that I can last to 80. And there are things I can do that will guarantee me that I cannot last till 80. So I'm trying to eliminate the things that would prevent me getting there and do the things that would help me to get there. And in so doing, I'm doing what I can to maximize quantity and quality, but I cannot stop the process completely. And even doing all of that, I may not make it 80.

And I may make it beyond. I don't know. But again, there's a limit to what we can do in the slowing down process. But here's the thing. As we fade more and more physically, we can become more and more spiritually. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, in our thinking, and in that creation of the new-mannered woman that's going on. As the physical decreases, the spiritual can increase. And what I can do physically, I'm less than I used to be. And what I'm aware of and can do and realize and accomplish that really does matter, I'm more than what I used to be.

As the physical goes down, and it will, the spiritual can go up. And as the physical grows weaker, the spiritual can grow stronger. And again, combining the aging process with God. Notice 2 Corinthians along this line of weakness and yet growing stronger or being stronger. In 2 Corinthians 12, and I'm not going to draw out of it all that we could draw out of it, but I want to read it and make a particular point.

In 2 Corinthians 12 verses 7 through 9, Paul said, Unless I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, and we won't speculate on that today, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice three times. Please remove this from me, please, please, three times that it might depart from me. And he said to me, now notice this, my grace is sufficient for you.

You're not going to remove it, Paul. Just bear in mind, my grace is sufficient. What I do is sufficient for you. And then notice this point, for my strength is made perfect or complete or mature in weakness. Interesting statement. For my strength is made perfect or mature in weakness. And then verse 10, Paul says, therefore I take pleasure and infirmities, and reproaches and necessities and persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake.

And of course, that word infirmities obviously is something that does come along too with the aging process. But notice, he says, for when I am weak, then I am strong. Though the outward man be perishing, the inward man is renewed day by day. The aging process teaches us that what we physically have can and will be taken away from us. Period. Time will see to that. So, as the old saying goes, you better not put all your eggs in one basket.

In other words, you better not invest everything only in the physical. Let's just break it on down. In other words, you better not live only for the here and now. Nothing wrong with properly living in the here and now, and properly planning and doing and all of that. But you better not live only for the here and now.

Better not live only for the moment, only in the moment. And there are people that do that. We've got a society of people that struggle through the week just to make it to the weekend. If they can just make it to the weekend, they can survive. And then they've got to start to grind over on Monday. And once again, if they can just make it to the weekend, our existence had better be more than just a sensory experience of the present.

And even the uncalled in this age grasp a lot of these things. I mean, it bears a lot of things on their mind. When I go Monday to do the funeral, that family has just had it stamped indelibly through a shocking situation with them, a very tragic and painful one of the family members just broke down and said, I didn't know you could hurt this bad. They've got it in their face how this life does not last indefinitely. It's really a very sad and tragic situation.

Of course, I know and I told them, and most of them are uncalled in this age, I said, I'm just going to tell you they wanted me to come and pray and all. And I told them and conversing with them, I said, I dogmatically tell you there is coming a time of resurrection and reunion with Johnny. You will be with him again in God's due time. Again, the aging process teaches us the lack of permanence with this life. And this temporary state is okay, used properly.

Nothing wrong with it used properly, but it's only for a time it's going to fade. And again, primarily by degrees. You know, up to age 19, I didn't wear glasses. Now, my left eye is my good eye. And it has created the sight picture on the back of my brain, totally dominated, totally dominated my right eye, which never fully developed in vision, but totally dominates. And I had a 20-20 sight picture on the back of my brain just because my left eye was so absolutely dominant.

I didn't need glasses. And sitting in a college classroom one day when I was 19, I noticed the chalkboard. And that's when we had chalkboards. There were little black dots dancing around on the chalkboard, and something was going on with my sight. Well, I went and saw an optometrist, and it simply was eye strain, and I needed glasses. Back when they had the horn-rimmed glasses, and I was 19, and I was pretty athletic, and I had never worn glasses. And I got these horn-rimmed glasses, and it's like I would start to go through a door, turn a corner, and I'd dodge for a moment because I thought I was about to hit something, you know, run into something, because I was seeing those rims around. I mean, it was really, it bugged the daylights out of me, but it did give me 20-20 vision again. And then, of course, the day comes for a lot of us. Our arms get shorter and shorter. We hold things out to read them further and further. Finally, we can't hold them out far enough, and we have to train our toes to hold it out so we can read, you know, the farsightedness. We deal with these things. Of course, what I've got on right now, I love the wire rims. I don't care if they're aviator glasses or whatnot. Best set of frames I've ever had. I don't have any blockage at all. I don't even notice the wire around them. But they're progressive. There's three different, like bifocals or trifocals only, they don't have the lines. Three different positionings for sight, for reading, for medium, and for driving out at a distance or whatever.

And you lose hearing. Why are people talking quieter than they used to? Everybody's talking quieter than they used to. Couldn't be my hearing. I used to be able to sit in the noisiest restaurant, cross the table from somebody, zero in on them, hear everything they've said. Now, if I'm talking to somebody, there's background noise, it just blanks it out.

Angela and I have a rule. We don't talk with each other unless we're in the same room. If I'm in another room, if she's in another room and I say something, she'll say, I can't hear you, I can hear the sounds, but, you know, can't make out the words. Or if she's in another room and she says something, I'll say, I can't hear you, we have a rule. Can't see you, don't talk to you. And literally, we have to do that because the hearing is such, you lose those abilities. And your muscles and your joints, they let you know more and more that they're there, and then one day you realize it's not just the furniture or the floors in your house that's creaking. It's your joints and bones and all of that. Your strength, your energies, your flexibility, your endurance are just not what they used to be. The decline is noticeable. You can't ignore it. You can't deny it. And again, what surprises you the most is how quickly it has slipped up on you. You know, in Psalm 37, and I can just hear David saying this, King David, Psalm 37, and verse 25, I can just hear him. It echoes kind of a wistfulness. He can remember, but his youth is only in his memories. He said, I have been young, and now I'm old.

Can you imagine when he was so stricken in years, couldn't even stay warm? Can you imagine him as he sitting there with a chill and shivering and just a worn-out frail old man, a grandson coming to see him, and the grandson bringing a friend, and they visit David, and the grandson with his friend leaves, and the friend of the grandson says to David's grandson, Wow, that's King David. He's a worn-out old man. Well, my grandfather has told me about how he stood on those ranks with the Israeli soldiers above that little valley, and the Philistines on the other side. And King David, as a young man, how he marched down into the valley and faced Goliath, nobody else would face him, and he went down in the valley, and he even ran towards him. And now he buried a rock about the size of an egg in the giant's forehead, toppled him, and then stood on him with his foot on him and drew his own sword and cut his head off with his own sword. That is the powerful mighty King David that my grandfather has told me about when my grandfather was young and one of those soldiers.

Yeah? And the aging process has caught up with him. Solomon, I go the way of all the earth. Time takes our youth. It takes our strengths and energies, and eventually it takes our life. You know, I remember my youth. I can only visit my youth now in my memories. I remember what I could once do, whether it was agility or strength or energies or whatever. I remember one summer there on the campus in East Texas, how I decided to go take a run.

And I went out, and this was in the summer heat. And if you've been in East Texas with the heat and humidity, I went out and I ran 16 miles. 16 miles. I lost 9 pounds. I weighed before I ran, weighed when I got back. Of course, it was all fluid. 9 pounds. By that same time, the next day, I gained all 9 plus 2 more back.

All fluid, of course. And then it leveled off back to where it was supposed to be. I'm not even sure I could go walk 16 miles now. And if I tried to pull a stunt like that, I would have a stroke or a heart attack. I used to have a saying that I could go day and night. I'd just have another cup of coffee and hamburger and just keep going. And I could.

And I did, many a time. Can't do that anymore. This past Sunday, the 27th, was the one-year date, anniversary, of when Angela had to take me to a walk-in clinic because my blood pressure was starting to damage my eye and internal organs and all. It was raging high. And it was that day that I saw a doctor and went on blood pressure medicine. And as I've said, better med than dead. So it was brought home to me, very realistically, that I will deal properly with the aging process to the degree it's within my power or it's going to finish me off.

I still have good energies. I still have health and thankful for. And I can still serve my God, my family, and my brothers and sisters in Christ. And if I do what I can, I can do that for hopefully a long, long time. But, you know, I face that I can't do what I once did. As I said, I can revisit those days and times in my memories. But that's the only way. The aging process, in and of itself, again, presents its own challenges.

And again, I wish I had understood certain things when I was much younger. You know, you and I hear sermons on trials. We hear sermons about the purpose of trials. We hear how trials play a role in our spiritual development and preparation for eternal life. And that is true. The aging process has built-in trials. They have built-in trials that are unavoidable. They're part of God's design, and they can serve a spiritual purpose if we allow them.

It is a challenge. You know, we read... I'll go back to 2 Corinthians 5. As we get older, there are certain words of Paul that we identify with more and more. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 4. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan. In this physical body, this physical composition, we do groan. What? Being burdened. The aging process burdens us.

And those of us that are deep into the aging process know that truly it does burden us. But it can serve to... it can have the fruit of further serving and solidifying our spiritual perspective. I want to back up to verse 16 of chapter 4 and read through about five verses or so. 2 Corinthians 4, beginning in verse 16. Paul says, For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. And in the original, there's no chapter break. It just flows right into the next verse. For eternal... For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven. We look forward to that time of immortality, even as we purposely deal rightly with the physical now. The aging process is natural, it's normal, it's automatic. It's unstoppable.

And it's so designed by God. How does God work with us? Well, He works with us very directly with His Holy Spirit, very directly through His Word, His truth. And He also works with us through the aging process, in an indirect way, and sometimes in a very direct way.

You know, He thought all of this out. Again, there are things we can do that have to do with extra quantity of life, certainly things we can do that have to do with extra quality of life. The other evening, I knew I needed to go walk. I needed to walk. I didn't really feel like it.

It's cold outside, and we're talking about dark. But Rome has some great walking areas, downtown, the levees, the greenways. I went out, I bundled up good, wrapped my throat with a muffler and all, bundled up real good. And I went out and I walked six miles because I needed to. Again, there are things I can do to enhance my health and energies and to slow down the aging process. But there is a validity to that process. And again, if we take what we can learn from and through and deal properly with that aging process with God, and we combine it in the lessons and the things there to teach us, and we handle it properly, it will have a very important spiritual work in us. So I will close with what I've already read two or three times, chapter 4, verse 16, for which cause we faint not, we don't quit, but though our outward man perished, it's in the process of fading away, dissolving on us, yet the inward man, that which is going to last, which really counts that spiritual work, that new creation, is renewed day by day on a daily basis we grow internally.