ARE YOU LIVING IMPAIRED? Lent Devotion #2

Isaiah 46:4     Even in your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. (NIV)

    Given the sales of youth-enhancers, members of our aging society are being dragged into seniority fighting and kicking. According to my friend Norma, in our national fixation with staying forever young, death may soon be described as “living impaired.”

     Our society emphasizes youth to the point that old people, no longer worthy of respect, are shoved on a shelf, hidden out of sight, perhaps so they don’t remind the upcoming generations that they too are on a journey to senior-citizenship.

     Perhaps this disrespect for the aged is stronger in current times because we are “progressing” so fast it’s a struggle even for the young and the swift to keep up. Our communication product purchases were obsolete at least a year ago. Furthermore, we live in a disposable society where only newness is valued.

Do we therefore devalue the accrued wisdom of the aging population?

Norma’s description of death is apt. Perhaps, though, she didn’t go far enough. Perhaps even being a senior citizen qualifies one for being “living impaired.”

Scripture offers a different viewpoint. Isaiah shouts that God will sustain us, even unto our gray hairs. “I have made you and I will sustain you and I will rescue you,” Isaiah 46:5 states.

So I pray for each graying person out there, that God will sustain you in your senior years, making you worthy of the respect you deserve. May you continue on in life, offering something that youth cannot give: a timeless wisdom accumulated through multiple decades of living that supersedes modern-day “progress.”