Psalm 92:14

New International Version (NIV)

They will still bear fruit in old age,
they will stay fresh and green,

For meditation

Every time I feel an ache or pain in my body, a smile flashes in my face.  I smile not because I love the pain and desire my body to ache. It is always a vindication of my late mother. She complained a lot about body aches and pains, especially, in her knees and back. I thought she was being too much and exaggerating as a child would do about a little pain for special attention. Bengay became her favorite requested item, and I made sure she had enough to share with her contemporaries to whom she had bragged about that ointment. Now I know how she felt, because I am living it in my sixties, and I can testify to its reality.

However, aging is not all about pains and aches. There is more to enjoy in our golden years than to focus on the stressful side of things. As in my youth, I always looked forward to the shade under the oak tree and the cool breeze from the thicket by the stream when returning from the farm in the heat of the noonday. It was refreshing, and it diminished the discomfort from the sun. We can also look to the brighter side of aging and be refreshed. We can be fruitful in our old age as we were in our youth, but in different ways and degree. Acknowledging this and enjoying the opportunity and privilege God gives to the aged, is the blessing we shouldn’t miss.

The Psalmist affirms this so well in the ninety second Psalm. Acknowledging God’s faithfulness and his response in the opening verses, he talks about the righteous and how they will flourish like a palm tree. They will grow gracefully like the cedar of Lebanon, because they are planted in the house of the Lord. “They will still bear fruit in old age; they will stay fresh and green” (Ps. 92:14). There is so much to do, as we grey, than to sit concentrated on the aches and pains in the body and waste away till death closes our chapter here on earth.

1. Has God blessed you with a good life?
2. What are you doing with the rich experience you’ve acquired through your youthful years?
3. Do you know how many people you can bless with that experience?
4. Do you know, for example that your grandchildren, the youth in your church and community, and the young couples, are a rich field for fruitfulness in old age?
5. Do you have any idea, the joy you will reap when you give yourself to these causes for the Lord?

I pray you stay fresh and green in your old age and bear much fruit in your church and community, proclaiming with the Psalmist, “The Lord is upright; He is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in Him” (15).

There is more dignity in aging than you think; so grow into it gracefully for God’s glory.

Shalom