Recently I saw an AARP commercial that I really liked. Their tagline? “Not everyone peaks in their twenties”.
There might be people who wonder where I get this theology.
There are at least two instances in the Bible where a person’s age continued but their bodies never aged. The first one that comes to mind is Caleb; the other was his leader, Moses.
Let’s go back to the time of Israel’s great Exodus. They’re just about ready to enter the promise land, and Moses sends ten spies to look at the land and to help him decide how to plan his battles. Caleb and Joshua are two of those spies and of all ten, these two are the only ones to bring back a good report. The Bible says that the Israelites were going to stone Caleb and Joshua for insisting that with the Lord’s help they could conquer the land, but God intervened and gave a curse and a promise. He told the Israelites that none them would enter the promise land except Joshua and Caleb because they trusted God would provide and fight the battles for them even against all odds.
Near the end of his life, Caleb gives his testimony in Joshua 14:6-12
“Remember what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, about you and me when we were at Kadesh-barnea. I was forty years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh-barnea to explore the land of Canaan. I returned and gave an honest report, but my brothers who went with me frightened the people from entering the Promised Land. For my part, I wholeheartedly followed the Lord my God. So that day Moses solemnly promised me, ‘The land of Canaan on which you were just walking will be your grant of land and that of your descendants forever, because you wholeheartedly followed the Lord my God.’
“Now, as you can see, the Lord has kept me alive and well as he promised for all these forty-five years since Moses made this promise—even while Israel wandered in the wilderness. Today I am eighty-five years old. I am as strong now as I was when Moses sent me on that journey, and I can still travel and fight as well as I could then. So give me the hill country that the Lord promised me. You will remember that as scouts we found the descendants of Anak living there in great, walled towns. But if the Lord is with me, I will drive them out of the land, just as the Lord said.”
And his leader, Moses had the same experience. He entered the desert, after killing the Egyptian, at about 40, received God’s call about 80 and died at 120. Deuteronomy 34:7 was his epitaph. What an epitaph!
Moses was 120 years old when he died, yet his eyesight was clear, and he was as strong as ever.
Now think about how long most people live now. According to the world life expectancy website, men and women in the United States live for about 78.61 years (not counting unnatural causes of death).
Caleb was as strong at 85 as he was at 40.
Moses was as strong at 120 as he was at 40.
The average lifespan of an Israelite at the time of Moses was about seventy. We know this by Psalms 90, which is a prayer of Moses. In verse 10 he says, “Seventy years are given to us! Some even live to eighty. But even the best years are filled with pain and trouble; soon they disappear, and we fly away.
So my entire point in bringing these facts up is that if God wants to extend a person’s life but preserve his or her body to last for as long as necessary, He can do it. After all He is the Master Creator.
And so, for me age is not an issue. In fact it’s an opportunity to see what the Lord will do for me, and I can guarantee that He can use me more in my 50s and beyond than He used me in my twenties and thirties all to glorify His magnificent name! The only reason He didn’t use me more as a younger woman is because I wouldn’t allow Him to. Now, my life says “Do with me what You will Lord. I’m ready.”