Resisting the Temptations of Old Age
So how do we help ourselves and each other resist the temptations of old age? Jesus never got old so we can’t look up a scripture showing us how he faced old age. Yet he was tempted in all points, as we are. So we can still ask what would Jesus have done is he would have faced age 80. I’ve asked older folk how they handle these temptations and here are some of their ideas which are a starter list for defeating the temptations of old age:
1. Selfishness.
·
Reject the notion that God or anyone else owes us anything—everything we
have is by grace and mercy and we need nothing else at the end of life to be “paid
in full.”
·
Practice the discipline of doing something we don’t enjoy that benefits
others and we will find the greater joy in the other-oriented life.
· What else?
2. Feeling
worthless
·
Refuse to tell people what we were—and more often tell them what we
are and do now—we read the Bible, pray for the youth, visit hospitals,
or whatever else we are presently doing. Most will never “get it” that being is
more important than doing—until they too become old.
·
Simply ease away from conversation with middle aged people who insist on
comparing us to hyperactive icons who hike the Grand Canyon or do sky-diving at
age 80 as if we ought to be doing likewise. Rather than confront them, just
stride away; they too will one day understand.
·
Be an example to others by valuing people as persons of worth for who
they are and not what they do—including your children who come to visit.
·
What else?
3. Stinginess
·
Give anyway—even if the people you are giving to are richer, live better,
and are more wasteful than you ever were when you saved the money you are
giving to them. Giving is good for us.
·
Take some action that requires you to trust in God and not our savings—go
out on a limb. Trust is a learned attitude.
·
What else?
4. Giving up
·
Accept the aches and pains of old age as part of the deal; do less but do
something—don’t give up.
·
Stay out of death’s waiting room as long as we can. We can not do what we
did at 50, but we can do something. Do that.
·
Avoid cynicism and the grumbling dark humor about what we have
lost—instead focus on what we still have. Can you still drive? Read? Write?
Pray? Focus on what we can do.
·
What else?
5. Morbidity
· Quit reading the obituaries mathematically. Read them to find people to pray for, but avoid seeing the death of others as your own mathematical curtain call. Accepting our own deaths is good, but dwelling on it is bad for us.
· If your middle aged pastor won’t preach on the resurrection or heaven, find an older minister somewhere who can come to your class or evening service and preach faith-building sermons on heaven. Faith comes by hearing.
· Tenderly confront other aged friends who are soaking in a bath of morbidity. Tenderly draw them out so they focus on what they have still have left to gain and to give.
· What else?
6. Feeling abandoned
·
Make new friends instead of clinging only to relatives and the friendships
of the past. Friend-making is learning to be interested in the other person,
which also helps us with #1.
·
Invite a young person to your house for lunch; take them out to a
restaurant. Don’t think they aren’t interested—some are…maybe more than your
own children.
·
What else?
7. Bitterness
·
Expect no reward at all in this life for your past service and giving;
expecting nothing, then we will sometimes be delightfully surprised when a
reward comes.
·
Combine together to confront ageism from the pulpit or pew. Refuse to let
ageist statements be made any more then we would let people or pastors make
racist statements—both are wrong. This is a blind spot for the middle and
younger aged people and needs to be confronted, not dismissed. If no middle
aged person will step up and confront it, we must do so.
·
Seek positive friendships and make time for them. Bitterness is the
companion of aloneness and can not survive in good company.
·
What else?
8. Despair
· Write your autobiography for your grandchildren or friends at church. Buy a computer or write it out longhand. Print it up as a book, copy it on a photocopier or post it on a web site, but do it one way or another. Find the worthy things in your life and embrace them so you can pronounce your life worthwhile.
· Urge other old people to do the same and read their story letting them read yours.
· Find some young person willing to listen to your life story and tell it to them.
· Start a Sunday school class where you tell life stories as “Testimonies to God’s grace” and listen to each other’s stories—affirm the worthiness of life and the faithfulness of God.
·
What else?
9. Doubt
·
Admit that the Devil tempts even old saints to doubt the goodness of God.
Share these temptations and pray for each other.
·
Get some preacher who knows how to build faith to address the temptation
to doubt If your kid-preacher can’t do it, find
someone else who is competent to preach these sermons and hear them gladly.
·
Read faith affirming books that focus on what “Christians at all times
and in all places have believed.” Keep
your focus off the things that have changed (dress, behaviors, music, church
rules etc.) and focus on the things that never change—those in the ancient
creeds and the claims of the gospel.
·
What else?
10. Losing faith
·
Don’t deny the temptation to lose faith at the end—it may come to you
too. Face it with others and turn back the clouds of unbelief so you can in the
end say with the Apostle Paul, “I have kept the faith.”
·
Figure out a way for old men and get together in a way that builds their
faith and certainty—not talking so about the frivolous methods that change from
one generation to another, but focusing on the core claims of the unchanging gospel
in a faith-building way.
·
If your church abandons shut-ins and nursing home residents then figure
out a way the still-walking can minister to the shut-ins. Much ministry to
older folk is carried on quietly by just-a-bit-less-old folk. If the rest of
the church ignores the aged, organize a ministry on your own and carry it on. The
very ministry you organize might become a life-saver when you too become shut
in
·
What else?
Getting old can be
hard work. But we are never totally alone. God makes house calls.
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Keith
Drury