When We No Longer Can

December 28, 2017

It’s been a slow day. Maybe it’s just that the evening isn’t full of activity; I did spend a couple hours plowing the driveway before going in to work, but aside from forcing myself to go outside to deliver some items to a couple of the kids, it’s quiet around here. I wonder if this is what old age is going to look like. If so, I already know how it feels: unproductive. When I was full time pastor, days and evenings were filled with planning, counseling, meetings, and activities, It’s possible that much of it was wasted activity; after all, being busy is not the same as being productive; it just feels that way. 

Seeing that I’m going to be in Dunkirk till July, I thought it would be worthwhile for me to map out my preaching schedule, so I took time today to plan out what I want to do from now till then. It’s going to be tight; there aren’t enough Sundays for what I have in mind. I remember what Eisenhower said about this: “Plans are nothing; Planning is everything.” Plans are expendable; they can and must change with circumstances, but the process of planning is indispensable. It’s the planning that prepares us for the surprises of life by framing those surprises with order. It was in today’s planning that God surprised me with an insight from the Lord’s Prayer.

But tonight, the quietness makes me think. Where will my purpose, my sense of being find its roots when I can no longer do things? It’s a question that strikes to the heart of the Gospel. We want to do stuff to justify our existence. The Gospel says we are justified by grace alone. It’s not about doing; it’s about being, and until we can come to grips with who we are in Christ, we will be frantically doing stuff, perhaps even good stuff, but for the wrong reasons, and when the stuff we do is rooted in the need to justify ourselves, it becomes lightweight, to be blown away by the slightest wind of the Spirit.

One way of dealing with all this is through prayer. Prayer is certainly something we do, but it is rooted in what we cannot, and only God can, do. So even when we are otherwise powerless, (when old and infirm?) perhaps only then are we able to really accomplish significant works, for we can pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” 

I am thankful that when I am not able to do the things I’ve done for forty years, I still have a place in God’s plans. Unlike Eisenhower, with God, plans are everything, and thankfully, we are written into them by the blood of Jesus Christ.