"Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)
What is more heroic? A valiant soldier during the bloodshed of ideologies fighting for supremacy? An Olympic athlete that breaks a world record and claims to have 'changed the world'? An elderly person that ends each day with peaceful prayer knowing that his or her soul has been resigned to the care of Almighty God?
“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you” (Isaiah 46:4).
The soldier exhibits self-preserving fury, the athlete a trained adrenalin-induced strength, and the elderly divine courage. None of them have ultimately 'changed the world', at least not God's plan for the world. But the elderly saint has a changed soul - and that changes his or her eternity. The earth's heroes du jour are like "new grass of the morning...it springs up but by evening is dry and withered". (Psalm 90:3-6).
God urges that we "stand in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere our God" (Leviticus 19:32). The godly elderly among us are heroes that lead the way to eternity by showing us that they have:
prospered because their soul prospers,
riches because they are rich toward God,
wisdom in the Wisdom of Jesus Christ.
