I am 73 years old. For most of my life, I have enjoyed good health. I have been blessed with strength, intelligence, even with an occasional outburst of wisdom. And I am grateful to God……my creator. But, I am getting old. My strength, health, and even my little bit of wisdom are fading. Just about every day, there is a job that I once would have done, that I now farm out to someone younger…….stronger…….more capable. I am beginning to think about finding someone to care for me…….when I am no longer capable of managing the most basic tasks.
Clearly, I am past my physical and mental peak. And, the final outcome of my decline will be my death. This is the story of life in our temporal world……not just mine……but yours as well…….even if you are a 20 year old Olympic champion:
Birth……the rise to power……..the loss of power…….death.
The secular humanist will tell you that this is the normal deterioration of any living organism. Your telomeres are failing. Your DNA is degrading. Your body’s natural repair mechanisms are falling behind in their race against the ravages of time. And all of this is true.
But, I believe that there is more to it. I believe that the slow physical and mental decline that we all experience…….unless we die “before our time”………is a part of God’s plan. We begin as children……..completely helpless, completely powerless, ignorant, completely dependent. We rise to adulthood when we enjoy power, even a degree of sovereignty. We then get old, weak, befuddled, and powerless. We wind up utterly dependent. And then we die.
We tend to view the years of power and sovereignty as the “normal” years and the years of dependency as anomalies. But, that really isn’t true.
Years ago, I was in the middle of a heated argument with my oldest son. He called me out on some point…….he said, “what do you think you are trying to do?” I replied, “I’m just trying to get control of the situation”. He said, “what you really mean is ‘the illusion of control”.
Smart guy.
I sometimes reflect on where both of us were on the “Bell curve” of wisdom on that particular day.
When you consider eternity under God’s sovereignty, it is clear to me that dependency, childhood, is the normal state of mankind. Our brief foray into the realm of power and control is the anomaly. It is clear to me that the decrepitude of old age…….our “second childhood”……..is the beginning of our transition to the spiritual world. This is a world where God……our creator……is absolutely sovereign and we are completely dependent…….childlike. God will not ask us how we think things should be run. He will not ask us where we want to go today or what we want for breakfast. God will decide.
This dependency grates against our sensibilities as adult humans.
But; if we are honest, aren’t we absolutely dependent…….on God…..right now?
After you subtract out all of the problems that arise from other humans exercising their power…….their attempts at sovereignty………the dependency of paradise under a loving creator………begins to look very good………heavenly.
This perspective sheds an entirely new light on the aches and pains that are my reality…….at 73.
I am simply returning to my baseline…….completely dependent on a sovereign creator……..a sovereign creator who loves me and cares for me……..who always has.
I hope to enter paradise with a childlike humility. This will inform my relationship with my creator………my eternity.
“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus explaining human dependency, Matthew 18:3-4, ESV
“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”
Jesus explaining God’s sovereignty, John 21:18-29, ESV