One of my friends who is a little younger than me told me recently, “Getting old is certainly not for sissies”. I had to agree, but there are also advantages to being blessed with a long life. I remember reading about a woman who was celebrating her 100th birthday. The local TV station sent a reporter and cameraman to cover the event. The woman seemed so happy and elated by all of the attention and the reporter asked, “What is the best thing about being 100 years old.” She immediately replied, “No peer pressure!” I can relate to that comment even though I’m still a long way from my 100th birthday. As a matter of fact, I commented just the other day that my parents taught me to respect my elders, but at my age it is getting harder and harder to find any of them.
One of the biggest advantages I have found of old age is experience. God has given me 78 years of life experiences and He isn’t done with me yet. What is most important is that 67 of those years have been spent experiencing life as a born again child of God. We have all heard the expression “experience is the best teacher”. The problem is that the lessons experience teaches are usually based on our mistakes and that can be painful. I learned at a fairly young age to heed the advice of Eleanor Roosevelt, “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” Learning from others’ mistakes is also much less painful. There is a reason God takes us through the history of mankind in the scriptures of the Old Testament. We find stories of the good, bad and ugly on those pages that teach us what we should do or should not do in our personal relationship with God. It bothers me when some people want to rewrite more modern history; eliminating mistakes they deem offensive. Being offended just might keep us from making those same mistakes. I especially hate it when they try to rewrite history while I’m still living it and know the first-hand truth.
Looking back on all of the countless experiences I’ve had as a Christian, it is hard for me to imagine a future situation that will not seem like familiar territory to me. God got me through it before and He will do it again. You younger Christians reading this haven’t experienced as many situations as I have, but you do have the Holy Spirit within you and He is never surprised or at a loss in any situation. I have never made a mistake when I have followed His prompting. I always learn to get through it with His help because it is all familiar territory to Him.