It’s amazing how a couple of years can change one’s perspective on these witty lines. “You know you’re old when…
- you’re standing next to your car with your keys in hand, but can’t remember whether you’re going somewhere, or just got back.
- when you sit down to the breakfast table, and the snap, crackle, pop you hear isn’t your breakfast cereal.
- when you bend over to tie your shoes and ask yourself, “Is there anything else I need to do while I’m down here?”
More and more I’m able to relate to the criteria that identifies me with the aged. In my antiquity, I’ve discovered a more troubling You know you’re old when… saying. It goes like this: You know you’re old when the things you have always deemed sinful and unacceptable, are condoned, and even encouraged, among people who profess to know and love God.
For instance, there was a time when homosexuality, divorce, abortion, premarital and extramarital relationships, morbid and inhumane entertainment, cheating, lying, cursing, lust, gluttony and other abuses of the body were considered unacceptable behaviors even among the general populace. And “Christians” in those days refused to dialog with the world about adjusting God’s perimeters for right. Sadly, times have changed.
Yes, I’m starting to feel my age; I have lived long enough to see what time and godlessness can do to a society bent on satisfying itself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that I am worthy to “cast the first stone.” Not one of us is better than the others. All of us sinners are in desperate need of deliverance from sin. I have good news! The writer of Hebrews says of Jesus Christ, “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)”