While You are Here

Endure! Stay strong, 
not relying on muscle strength 
because it won’t last. 
Like the grass, like flowers, 
you will fade away 
and dissolve. You will 
go back to the dust. 
It is on God you must
always focus! Glue your trust
on his goodness, his wisdom!

He has known you since
he formed you in the womb.
He knows your life path,
knows when he’ll bring you home.

While you are here, breathe.
Bloom where he has planted you.
Spread joy in the company 
of others, or alone, looking up.
Cope with the chill as autumn
turns to winter. Your Creator
loves your unique place
in the world he made.
He loves you, the gift he gave,
the child he holds
close to his loving heart.

A friend recently said to me, “You seem so healthy but you have all these little things to deal with!” She was referring to the physical changes that start coming into play with aging. And yes, there are constant new challenges. When a birthday comes, you are grateful that you’ve enjoyed another year. But as the years pile up you wonder if the “autumn” of your life is becoming “winter.”

How can I keep on being fruitful in this phase? How can I bloom where I’ve been planted during this aging process, this “winter”? Am I an evergreen? Or am I like that flower that can’t make it past mid-autumn?

Maybe you are not in your eighth decade like me, that place where you hit the average life expectancy for the U.S. But it’s true that none of us can know how much time we have:

¹⁵ The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; ¹⁶ the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. (Ps. 103:15-16 NIV)

That said, worrying about how long you may have been given is not productive unless it is a wake-up call to live every day to its fullest, not focusing on what does not matter in the end. The accumulation of wealth or of little souvenirs will all be left behind. And we have no way to predict what will happen to it or to us in our lifetime. What matters is our faithful attachment to our God and to his daily plan, living according to his commands. Jesus himself said:

  As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. ⁴⁸ They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. ⁴⁹ But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.” (Lk. 6:47-49 NIV)

That firm foundation that keeps your house from being washed away by the flood is putting Jesus’ words into practice. Hearing them is not enough. The greatest ones, he said, those that fulfill all the others, are to love God with everything we are and those around us too, just the way we care about ourselves (Mat. 22:36-40).  Focusing on that is a lifelong purpose! We need to learn how to do that. We can dig deep into the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, and ask our Master to show us how to live it out. Then do what he underlines for us. That is a high calling! So are Jesus’ words about living in union with him as his disciple in John 14-17. The fact that he promised to give each one of his followers a Guide, his own Spirit, is what gives us hope. We are not supposed to figure this out by ourselves. When we lean on him and obey his teachings, we can grow up the way he wants us to, blooming where he has planted us.

Relying on God’s faithfulness also gives us peace. All around us the world is swirling with dangers, everything from relational conflicts to traffic accidents to illness to crimes (the list is long). The one safe place where we can have confidence is in our union with him, living each day in the company of his Spirit who teaches us:

²⁵ “All this I have spoken while still with you. ²⁶ But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. ²⁷ Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:25 -27 NIV)

There it is: “do not be afraid!” Don’t even let yourself fall prey to ongoing frustration that wears you down!

Do not fret when wicked men seem to succeed! Do not envy evildoers! ² For they will quickly dry up like grass, and wither away like plants. ³ Trust in the LORD and do what is right! Settle in the land and maintain your integrity! (Ps. 37:1 NET)

Trust him, rely on him, do what he says; do not stay focused on the evil all around!

Finding joy in the journey often requires making the choice to remember that the hope of God’s children is both in his ongoing Presence here and now and all that he is preparing in the Great Beyond for us. That is a confident “hope”, an assurance that when your end comes, you are welcomed into the Joy he has prepared for you. Meanwhile, if you are one who gets to live a long life, be glad!

When I was helping the Nyarafolo translation team translate Leviticus, many days were filled with tough examination of weights and measures, animal and plant names—lots of tricky details. But when we came to chapter 19, which is the climactic center of that book, we found lots of deep teaching and some delightful applications. Take this one that commands reverence for certain ones of us who have made it into the category of the aged—I asked my cohort to obey, to stand up in front of me! We all laughed:

“‘Stand up in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the LORD. (Lev. 19:32 NIV)

Old people are indeed honored there in Africa where the life expectancy is much shorter than here in America. And long life is a precious gift that brings a wealth of experience—hopefully leading to wisdom:

The glory of the young is their strength; the gray hair of experience is the splendor of the old. (Prov. 20:29 NLT)

God loves us all, the child being formed in the womb, the old lady and old man. Those of us in his Family can rest in his love, no matter what foreboding is attacking us. I had to repeat this to myself in the middle of the night last night, lying awake and wrestling with a long list of must-do’s and what-if’s. Where was that peace beyond understanding? Why was my heart wondering about so many outcomes?

Stop, Linn, I kept telling myself. Keep your mind fixed on the Lord and his goodness, and his promise to empower you to do what he sets before you! Remember to relinquish ownership of plans! He will accomplish his projects!

I finally slept again. May you find peace in the goodness of God as you step into 2025 too!