Happy Birthday

To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1

Today is my birthday and I am thinking about aging. In all honesty, I’m also thinking about parties and putt-putt, polka dots presents and perennial friends, but today’s tick of the clock does point out that indeed, I am a year older.

The American culture doesn’t look kindly on aging. It pressures me to hide it, dye it, deny it, and fight it at all costs. A little liposuction here, a slight tightening with the knife over there, and a generous sprinkling of support garments everywhere all add to the illusion that youth is a treasure to be grasped forever. God disagrees.

A gray head is a crown of glory;
It is found in the way of righteousness.
Proverbs 16:31

We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us…Though outwardly we are wasting away,

yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
II Corinthians 4:7,16

Long life is a blessing. While one glance in the mirror shows that outwardly I am wasting away – inwardly I carry the treasure of God.

Against the cultural pull, God declares, a year older is a year newer. And this year, the plastic surgeon of my soul has been cutting away all that is not of Him. The temptation towards independence is being removed, the busyness increasingly stilled, and the importance of God seen clearer than ever before. He is the gift I most want to unwrap.

God has called the old, the wise, and the increasingly wizened to an important work. Even as the ice cream cake melts, I am to know Him and to show Him. The Psalmist puts it this way,

O God, You have taught me from my youth,
And I still declare Your wondrous deeds.
And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me,
Until I declare Your strength to this generation,
Your power to all who are to come.

Psalm 71:17-18

With smile lines showing, I joyfully declare, I am a year older today. I have a rich inheritance and a heavenly calling to pass it on. Hand me another piece of cake; it’s time to celebrate.