It is a beautiful Sunday. Bright sun, clear blue skies, and a gentle breeze. I can hear the laughter and music from the pool in the complex, and someone is grilling over the fence. I am watching all this from my bedroom window. I am inside on this beautiful day doing homework. Math homework to be precise. Formulas for simple and compound interest. As many of you know, I have decided to return to school. Crazy, I know, I have passed the half-century mark, and I am a grandmother now, but I have always wanted to get my education. It has been hard, not just getting through classes but being the oldest in the class, that most times includes the professors. Everything is online, powerpoints, virtual books, and apps on my phone. School is very different than the last time I cracked the books. It is intimidating and overwhelming a lot of the time. I cannot help but wonder if it was foolish for me to be pursuing my education this late in life. However, I took a little look in the Bible, and I found several prominent people that God called into action were well into their years.
- Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, and water covered the earth. Genesis 7:6 So Noah probably was between 525 and 545 years when he began building the Ark.
- Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh. Exodus 7:7
- Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” Genesis 17:17, God got the last laugh on that one.
- Remember Caleb, who followed Moses into the wilderness, when he was forty years old, Moses sent him as a spy into the Promised Land. When the people rejected his report, he had to wait for forty years. At eighty-five years of age, now serving under Joshua, he asked for permission to drive the Anakites from the “hill country.” He had another mountain to conquer.
These few are just a small sampling of those that even in advanced years were willing to serve. So age is no excuse to stop serving, stop learning, or stop sharing the Gospel. No matter how old you are, God has a plan and a job for you. So if you are thinking that once you get to a certain age you can sit back and do nothing, you need to think again. There is work to do until He calls you home.
“Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come. Psalm 71:18.
Age is irrelevant to God.
Typist for Jesus
Mustard Seeds, Modern Parables 