Like the unknown psalmist, the years of experience, adversity, and both hits and misses have taught us a lot by the time there is snow on the roof, and we do most of our chewing in the front of our mouths. This psalm reviews all that is important as we approach the end of our lives. We have learned a lot, and now it is important that we pass on some of these life lessons to the next couple of generations behind us. Their lives and times are different, but the fundamental principles of life and morality, faith and hope, grace and truth do not change from one generation to the next.
In what is known by many as the “sunset years of life,” it is well for us to review the ways of God with us. It will keep us from being complainers or “grumpy old men” when we stop to recall what really has happened to us and what could have happened but didn’t. A Christian believer will remember when we first put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and then how we have confidently said in our hearts to the Lord, “In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust.” We did that in the past and still do.
Difficulties and trials in life have come and gone. Calamities and sickness were times of learning – and still are. The mighty acts of God on our behalf are some of the highlights of our lives. We remember His righteous deeds, favorable to us, as our prayers were answered in so many ways. His marvelous deeds in our extremity, some even before our desperate prayers were made, remain indelibly impressed on our minds, even though much has happened in recent years that we don’t even remember.
Like the psalmist, we have been called upon to pass through trials, and they still assure us that God is our dwelling place. Our faith in Him does not diminish when we continue to make our petitions known to Him in the early morning and late at night when we are sleepless in our beds. Our worship of our blessed Lord is the basic foundation of our living. Complaints seem so trivial as we find ourselves more and more speaking to our Father. He doesn’t seem to mind that we keep coming day after day, hour after hour, and moment after moment with our small and big things. How often are we comforted when we say, “Good afternoon, Father: I just got up from a nap, and I wanted to say, ’Thank you’ for giving me the ability to sleep. It really was a refreshing twenty minutes.”
For the benefit of others and ourselves, reaffirming our trust in the Lord, our hope and strength, even as we grow weaker, may give our children and grandchildren some life lessons that will help them now and later. An appeal for deliverance from enemies, whether people, adverse circumstances in which Satan tries to take advantage of our age, or the “last enemy,” our prayer is, “Deliver me, O God.” Our appeal is based on our faith in God, and the assurance of the appeal being heard is in God only. Our hope is in Him continually. Hope for the future leads us to praise God in the present in faith and by faith. We have learned and testified to God's faithfulness. “Thou hast taught me.”
Praise to God and His truth is always appropriate in every possible way. It may be only praise in thought, but that can be praise. It may be a song in the heart or one in our mouth. It may be an “Amen” to someone else's words, but praise is always comely. Even under the pressure of changing times, standards, and changing people, including our own families, we must commit to praising God, our hope, and wisdom. That is all we have to pass on to the younger generation that has any lasting value and significance. Only God can vindicate His servant when we seem like a misfit to the next generation, even when they are our flesh and blood.
What we can pass on to the next generations is that God has been our constant help from youth to old age. God has been, and still is, our strength, even more so as we get physically weaker. God is our hope and help as we seek to continue to serve Him. We are not too old to serve Him, and we are not too old to tell of His wondrous mercies to us through the years of life. We are not too old to use our influence when it is good, and, to a degree, to offer some advice and show some leadership.
As a senior citizen, I pray that I will be able to maintain my purpose in life: to glorify God. To that end, I must demonstrate to younger people my persistence in walking by faith, not by sight. I must commit to using the benefit of my presence to positively influence younger people for as long as I can. I must speak of my joy in the Lord. I must tell of His ways with us, His work in us, and His work through us. I must ensure the younger generation knows my trust is in Him alone. Through Him, I have daily and permanent deliverance from all against me. I must ensure they know that it is God, my Rock, and my Refuge in whom I place my confidence and trust.
In crisis times, a person's hope in old age is in God. We wait for Him to come to our aid as we open each day in prayer and communion with Him. Our God is greater and more powerful than any event that brings problems and latent fear. His power is higher than the heavens. Any so-called enemy that opposes God’s divine purposes for His servant will fail. It is incumbent on me, as a child of God for nearly seventy years, to praise Him for His goodness and wonderful works to the children of men. Praise is always greater and more important than problems.