Monday, June 28, 2021 Go-Go Years

Our financial consultant has neatly summed up the three phases of life once the kids are grown and out of the house: The Go-Go Years, The Slow-Go Years and the No-Go Years. I’m pleased to report that right now we’re in that first phase, the Go-Go Years. Everybody’s circumstances are a little different, but in general these are the years in which you still have the energy and resources to go places, visit people and stay fairly active. By the time you get to the Slow-Go years, you may have more physical limitations and it’s harder to get around. And if you live long enough, you will find yourself in the No-Go years in which you can’t drive, it’s hard to move from the couch to the kitchen, and anybody that wants to see you pretty much has to come to you instead of the other way around. I have made a helpful diagram for you.

It’s also when we embark upon these phases of life that certain Bible verses begin to leap out at you that you were happily blind to before.

Therefore, we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.
2 Corinthians 4:16

Oh, the aches and pains of that outward perishing! The knees that groan, the back that goes out, the struggle to get in and out of a chair, the longer and longer recovery times from illness and injury, the awareness of muscles getting weaker, the mind losing its sharpness, the inability to kneel or sit on the floor… You’ve probably got your own list.

Yet, the inward man is being renewed day by day.

Solomon wrote metaphorically about the No-Go Years: “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come, and the years draw near when you say, ‘I have no pleasure in them…’ In the day when the keepers of the house tremble [bones and muscles], and the strong men bow down [the stooped look of the old man]; when the grinders cease because they are few [teeth], and those that look through the windows grow dim [eyes].” Ecclesiastes 12:1,3-4.

And yet…and yet – the inward man is being renewed day by day.

Renewed for what? Listen to this: “But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 For those who are in Christ, the No-Go Years will be followed by the Ever-Go Years, which will never cease and in which we will have renewed strength, bodily strength.

The inward man will have a new imperishable outward man, and “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

Can I get an “Amen!”

I’ll probably delete this in the morning while I’m on the go-go.