by Craig McKellar
Morning to all fellow travellers on this journey of life. Colossians 3:10 says, “You have begun to live the new life in which you are being renewed [made new] in the true knowledge of God and are becoming like [according to the image of] the One who created you” (the [expanded] Bible). We are becoming more like Christ as we work with God in this process of “being renewed,” which is in the present tense; showing this is a lifelong process for followers of Jesus. There are numerous pictures of what this maturity looks like, one that we have identified is ‘persevering with joy.’ It is one thing to endure trials but quite another to be “full of joy” when “you have many kinds of troubles [trials; testing]” (James 1:2). But James goes on to say we can “count it all joy” because these troubles, in testing our faith, produce a patient endurance/ perseverance. Jesus “endured the cross” for “the joy that was set before him” (Heb. 12:2) and now we “consider him who endured” so that we can “run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1-3).
Ecclesiastes paints rather a bleak picture of physically aging in chapter 12. I spoke to an elderly guy this week who tripped in his bathroom and fell backwards, almost cracking his head on the edge of his bath. He cheerfully reminded himself of Paul’s words, “So we do not lose heart. Though our physical body is becoming older and weaker [wasting away, decaying], our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). J.I. Packer, in his little book Finishing our Course with Joy, encourages believers to go flat out until the finish line. He uses three thoughts on how to do this as we age: “First, live for God one day at a time. Whatever long-term plans we may have, we need to get into the habit of planning each day’s business in advance, either first thing each morning or (better, I think) the day before. Glorifying God should be our constant goal [he then speaks of reviewing our day and making adjustments]…Surely it is increasingly important that we do this as we approach the end of life and the prospect of giving an account of ourselves to God.
Second, live in the present moment. Get into the way of practicing God’s presence-more specifically, Christ’s presence, according to his promise to be with us always (Matt. 28:20)…Daydreaming and indulgence of nostalgia are unhappy habits, making for unrealism and discontent…Elderly retirees are prone to find that a disciplined breaking of them is an increasingly necessary task in life’s last lap, in which steady looking ahead in each present moment becomes a bigger and bigger factor in inner spiritual health.
Third, live ready to go when Christ comes for you. Jesus’ words in John 14:2-3 (“in my Father’s House are many rooms… and I go to prepare a place for you…) are a promise to faithful disciples in every age. The experience of dying varies from one to another (sudden accident, heart stoppage, conscious to the last breath or in a coma, etc) and we cannot foresee how it will be for us. So the way of wisdom is to be ready for whatever comes, whenever it comes. More than making a will…First and foremost, it involves direct, sober dealing with the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who is not only the one who will come as our courier to take us through our transition from this world to the next, but also the one who at some point in that world will be our Judge. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10).
A British professor of theology once described to the world to which believers will go as “an unknown country with a well-known inhabitant.” When Jesus Christ the courier has already become well known to us through the Gospels and Pastoral Letters of the New Testament, the prospect of transitioning with him into a world in which we shall see him as he is and be constantly in his company will be something we find alluring rather than alarming.”
Keep journeying with perseverance and Joy!