February 01, 2023
Daily Devotion:
"Live each Day Gracefully"
1 Timothy 6:17
God richly gives us everything to enjoy.
Walk into any bookstore, pick up any popular cultural magazine off a news rack, and you will quickly be reminded of how significant an issue aging is to millions of people.
Questions abound: Am I making enough money to secure a comfortable future? What will do after I retire? Am I in the right career now? How are my kids doing? What kind of world awaits them? How am I doing health-wise? WilI be active and strong after retirement? How do I keep my mind sharp and alert? Improved healthcare, diet, and other medical and socio-logical factors mean that people today live much longer than at any other moment in history-at least since the early Old Testament record of pre-Flood characters like Methuselah!
Questions of aging aren't just asked by the “old”- and “old” is a very hard concept to define-and not just regarding matters of health and money. Though we appear to be aging, more slowly, millions of young adults are already concerned with age issues in regard to attractiveness, career status, and other issues.
The good news is that God has given us everything we need to enjoy life now. Yes, we should plan for and look to the future. The Apostle Paul describes with great emotion how they earns to be present with Jesus in Heaven (See 2 Corinthians5:1-10), but the real secret of aging with grace is how you live today.
If you want to increase your chances of being healthy at age eighty, take care of your body with reasonable exercise and diet today. If you want your mind to be sharp and quick in twenty years, read, think, and discuss matters today. If you want to be stronger spiritually in the future and leave a lasting legacy through the people you have touched with grace, then pray and minister today. Ultimately, the question of how to age gracefully is no different than the question of how to live each day gracefully. Seize the day and enjoy it and live it fully.
