Aging

“…did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies…” Judges 8:34

Unusual things become commonplace after they take place, and they become mundane if they happen routinely. Not many of us are overwhelmed by the beauty of a sunrise or the glorious scene of a sunset. How much energy does it take to make the earth turn? How much power is needed to make our heart pump some seventy times a minute? We don’t often ponder about the miraculous operation of our body or how hard it has to work to keep us alive, do we? We only pay attention to it when it’s not working properly and cry foul when it finally quits working.

“We have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than we,” wrote G.K. Chesterton. Children don’t seem to get tired of doing or seeing the same thing over and over again. “Do it again, do it again, “ they cry. They are so eager to see or do the same thing because it feels like the first time every time they experience it. O how thrilling it would be if we could duplicate the first time feeling for the things that we do routinely.

“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” said the Lord Jesus.

Rick, my brother-in-law, is a collector or novel things, be they toys, video games, theological books, or most importantly, experiences of various kinds. He has a child’s heart when it comes to any novelty and is eager to experience the thrill of either playing a new game, watching a good movie, reading a new book, or doing things for the first time. He is about my age, but he is a lot younger than I am in many ways. I have become cynical because of my age and the things that I have experienced in life. Nothing seems to excite me anymore, but Rick is still charging against the world with gusto and enthusiasm, like a child who is just learning to ride a bicycle or a teenage who is sitting behind the wheel for the very first time.

Rick’s passion for life is indeed to be envied and my lack thereof is greatly to be pitied. May the Lord have mercy on me by imparting in me the first time feeling when I do things for the second or third time. The sure sign of aging is our lack of interest in seeing and learning new things.

We must change the way we look at things to cultivate our gratitude to God. We deem the thing that occurs only one time miraculous, not knowing that things that take place all the time are far more miraculous, for it takes a lot more strength to do things regularly than to just do it once. Lazarus’ coming back to life was a great miracle, but wasn’t not any less miraculous for him to live for so many years before he died, was it?

Everything that happens in the world is magical in a child’s eyes; but it is monotonous and tedious if it is view from an adult’s perspective. How we see the world determines who we really are.

Ordinary Life

“Jerub-Baal son of Josh went back home to live.”
Judges 8:29

Like anything else out of the ordinary, war is a diversion from the usual life that most of us are accustomed to. Gideon went to battle for a season, but the clash didn’t last forever. People kill and are killed during war, but eventually things go back to normal and those who manage to remain alive go back to their ordinary lives.

We are created for peace, not for war. People may engage in warfare for a short period of time, but it takes an entire lifetime to recover from it, and many never do. We may play war-games as entertainment, but real war isn’t a thing of amusement. When it is finally over, all we want to do is to return home and be an ordinary person, with ordinary pleasures of life.

Gideon could have reaped a lot of benefits from his triumph over the Midianites, but all he desired to do was to go home to live. Only those who are bored with the monotony of daily life need diversions; the ones who are content with doing little things daily need no recreation to make their life more tolerable or joyful.

We all have a strange yearning for significance; the problem is that we only have a very vague idea of what true significance is. If we get it wrong and spend our lives perusing what we deem worthy, I am afraid we will take our regrets and remorse to our graves. It’s usually too late when we realize that we have made a serious mistake and have wasted our lives chasing worthless things.

Being significant is to do the little things that the Lord calls you to do faithfully and without grumbling. It was probably a matter of months that Gideon spent in fighting the battle, which was indeed a significant thing, but his life didn’t end after the pivotal event occurred. “Jerub-Baal son of Josh went back home to live.” We read. What did the hero do for the remainder of his life? Just a bunch of little things, I suppose.

“I am a failure,” I said to my son William jokingly.

“At least you raised three sons,” he responded with a straight face.

Such a feat isn’t anything out of the ordinary, I thought, but that’s what millions of people did before me and millions more will do after me. With only a few exceptions, raising a family is the main thing that people do with their lives, isn’t it?

The greatest gifts of God are often found in small packages. We don’t appreciate the gifts we have received because we either don’t know or have no affection for the Giver. The most precious gifts that God gives to us are available to all people and in great quantity. The things we can absolutely not do without in life are so abundantly given to us by God, yet we are hardly grateful for them. The ordinary things that we do routinely are tonics to our soul, like fresh water and clean air to our bodies. Blessed are the ones who find joy and fulfillment in their ordinariness.