Sales people leave their last appointment. Traffic leaves the city streets. Thoughts turn to an evening meal and recreation. There is a recognizable pattern to a human day regardless of nationality and there is a pattern to lives that holds true all over the world. The young build strength and skill. The mature employ those strengths and skills in a vast array of employments that for most part are merely “place holders” that provide no satisfaction except as they help us attract mates and care for the families we build. The aged in the west are reaping the harvest they thought they wanted only to find it unexpectedly empty whether they have great savings to rely on or not.
The purpose of youth is to learn, to grow. The purpose of the mature is to participate in cooperative and profitable enterprise. Even self-employed people are part of an overall enterprise and they either provide a service that others want or they soon find another line of work that DOES provide a wanted service.
Purpose gives us a reason to get up every morning even when we haven’t gotten enough sleep the night before. But what is the purpose for the aged, or retired? We always went to school because that’s what we were supposed to do. We worked because it was expected of us or we wanted to earn some money to have a place of our own where we could make our own decisions and a few of us had professions that we loved: taking care of people or animals; or discovering new health remedies; or -you name it.
Now what do we do? What make it worth getting up each day? Baby sit the grandchildren? Families break up. They may live hundreds of miles apart … in different directions! Impart sage advice to a new generation? Provide a steadying influence in struggling families, taking the pressure off parents and children? We use to do that and we were a stronger society because of it but we don’t live with or even near the kids now.
Paul said something that seniors ought to understand, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” (1 Cor 15:19) The human spirit must have something to look forward to and the life that sees no future sees no reason to grow, to learn, to develop skills or to work to accomplish anything. The disciples who were on the road to Emmaus might as well have been on death’s door because they had lost all hope. “But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel” - It was all past tense. But when Christ was recognized, even though he disappeared from their sight, suddenly life was worth living again and they went back to tell their story.
You have a story and if you have a savior, your life will not end with the grave. Tell your story. Encourage the rest of us. Be honest. If you appear to have been a paragon of virtue we may not believe that we can aspire to follow your example but if you tell of your struggles and how Jesus did most of the “heavy lifting” we may think “Cool. And remember Jesus we we’re in a jam.” Trust in the Lord. Let Him direct your path.
The purpose of youth is to learn, to grow. The purpose of the mature is to participate in cooperative and profitable enterprise. Even self-employed people are part of an overall enterprise and they either provide a service that others want or they soon find another line of work that DOES provide a wanted service.
Purpose gives us a reason to get up every morning even when we haven’t gotten enough sleep the night before.
But what is the purpose for the aged, or retired? We always went to school because that’s what we were supposed to do. We worked because it was expected of us or we wanted to earn some money to have a place of our own where we could make our own decisions and a few of us had professions that we loved: taking care of people or animals; or discovering new health remedies; or -you name it.
Now what do we do? What make it worth getting up each day? Baby sit the grandchildren? Families break up. They may live hundreds of miles apart … in different directions! Impart sage advice to a new generation? Provide a steadying influence in struggling families, taking the pressure off parents and children? We use to do that and we were a stronger society because of it but we don’t live with or even near the kids now.
Paul said something that seniors ought to understand, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” (1 Cor 15:19) The human spirit must have something to look forward to and the life that sees no future sees no reason to grow, to learn, to develop skills or to work to accomplish anything. The disciples who were on the road to Emmaus might as well have been on death’s door because they had lost all hope. “But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel” - It was all past tense. But when Christ was recognized, even though he disappeared from their sight, suddenly life was worth living again and they went back to tell their story.
You have a story and if you have a savior, your life will not end with the grave. Tell your story. Encourage the rest of us. Be honest. If you appear to have been a paragon of virtue we may not believe that we can aspire to follow your example but if you tell of your struggles and how Jesus did most of the “heavy lifting” we may think “Cool. And remember Jesus we we’re in a jam.” Trust in the Lord. Let Him direct your path.