Friday, February 10, 2012

Age Can Bring Us Closer To God

Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained by living a godly life. -- Proverbs 16:31

There are such gems in the Bible! This one just leapt out the other day and I wondered how I could have possibly missed it all these years. Maybe gray hair just wasn’t such an issue in the past. It is now.

I doubt many of us view gray hair as a “crown of glory.” There are a few exceptions. One friend, certainly a godly woman, wears her gray hair with pride. I doubt she’s ever really thought about coloring it. She is who she is. I admire that.

Not that I’m following her trend. I’m old enough without having a desire to look even older. I’ve reached the stage in life where everyone puts a “Miz” before my name. I try not to be offended, especially when the person doing it is older than I am.

I know. It’s a sign of respect. Sometimes I’m not only glad about that, I’m happy about it. Other times I just feel old.

It is age gained on a mountainous trek through life. I suppose some folks have an easy path. Not me. Some of it was fate. Some of it was my own doing. But it all has led me to this point of salvation and love of Jesus beyond anything I could ever have imagined.

Maybe it’s that experience that Solomon referred to when he spoke of a godly life. Tragedy, mistakes, unexpected loss, disappointment -- all those things can either draw you closer to God or give you an excuse to go your own way. The wisdom comes in realizing that the only true way is closer to God.

Some days I’d love to go back and have a redo of parts of my life. Hindsight is like that. We can clearly see all our mistakes and the paths we should have taken. But we can’t go back and, really, would we want to? We are where we are because of where we’ve been.

I don’t know if I’ll ever embrace gray hair but I have learned to accept the path that led me to Christ. I have come to understand that my love of Jesus, my commitment to Bible study, my very salvation has deepened as I made my way on that uneven path. I would never want to go back to that time before I knew how valuable that was.