by James Webb
I have been journaling on and off since I was 18, and recently I decided to read through some of my old notebooks. There are some gaps in my history, where I had a year or so off, but on the whole it’s a reliable screencap of my mental state over the past twenty years. Read more
Being a dad is tricky, and I don’t always get it right, so when I do it tends to stick in the mind.
One Australian summer’s day, at the local pool, a young Calvin came to me with a two dollar coin that he’d found. “What should I do with this, dad?“ he asked, and in a moment of inspiration I replied, “Well, what do you think you should do with it?” Read more
“It is the dreadful lie of our culture that you must take the great adventures while you are young. Maybe so in abseiling and Bungee Jumping; but it is not so in the truly dangerous business of the Kingdom.”
Peter Volkofsky
It’s definitely true that our culture lionises youth. Getting old is seen as a backwards step; a decline; a curse rather than a blessing. But if you’re bemoaning your lost youth then you’ve done nothing more than bought into another lie. There’s a Native American saying: “No wise person ever wanted to be younger”. The truth is that if you’re living well, then you’ll be growing in character and wisdom. If you’re giving your relationship with God the attention that it deserves then you are more like Christ today than you were this time last year. If this is the case, then you’re actually more useful to God now than you used to be, and you’ll become even more useful the older that you get. The Bible is full of elderly heroes; men and women who didn’t hit their stride until the years of experience had caught up with them, and the wisdom of suffering had tempered and focused their youthful energy. Jesus himself spent his youth preparing for the tasks of middle-age. Let me add this: if you aren’t nurturing your relationship with God then you’ve got bigger problems than aching muscles, saggy skin and unwanted hair.
Be encouraged. The world may tell you that your glory days are behind you; that your purpose now is to grow old quietly and aim for nothing more than to be a productive member of United Kingdom PLC, but I tell you that God has plans.
